Emil ‘Mimi’ Toth has competed at Rideau Carleton Raceway for nearly the last five decades, making himself a popular fixture as a trainer-driver at the Ottawa oval.
“My dad was in the business there. He started when we were 12 or 13; me, my brother and my sister,” Toth said to Rideau Carleton’s Graeme Mitchell. “He had a horse called Trot Trot Charlie, a trotter… he was old time. Me and my brother got into it, then I got a job with Robert Charron. He needed a guy to clean stalls, so I was looking around [at] how to you know, you watch what you’re looking at there.I just watched from my parents and watched in the barn. He said ‘Mimi, go jog a horse.’ I said ‘I’ve never jogged a horse in my life.’ So I hopped on him and I made it around, however many laps there, and I came back. He said ‘Mimi, just slow down a little bit.’ And after that, off I went in the business, and I went on to get horses of my own.”