Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Horse named in honor of Kings scouts killed in 9/11 tragedy makes its first start today

With today marking the 9th anniversary of the terrible events on September 11, 2001 the hockey world reflects on two of their own that were lost in the events of that day. Garnet “Ace” Bailey and Mark Bavis were on United Airlines flight 175, one of two planes that crashed into the World Trade Center. Both Bailey and Bavis were working for the Los Angeles Kings as scouts and were on their way back to Los Angeles from Boston that morning to prepare for the start of the season.

Today, their memory is marked in one of the more peculiar ways in the form of a race horse named Aces Mark making its first start at Belmont Park, an ironic twist that wasn’t intended to be.

Long-time Ottawa Senators scout Lew Mongelluzzo will skip the first day of the team’s prospect tournament in London, Ont., to attend the race at Belmont. He operates Team Power Play Racing, which owns Aces Mark, and will be thinking of his former colleagues on the ninth anniversary of their death.

“There’s no better word for it than bittersweet,” Mongelluzzo said Friday. “As much as you get excited about the race--we feel the horse is doing well and going to perform well--it takes a split second to remember everything that’s gone wrong and why we’re here.

“The reality is that it’s not a happy time.”

No one will ever forget what happened on that day, and having the hockey world be all the more entangled in what happened that day makes the day all the more painful for everyone connected to the game. I’m sure all of us will be pulling for Aces Mark to come away with the win today.

If you’re hoping to make a positive contribution on this day, visiting the websites set up in honor or Bailey and Bavis like the Ace Bailey Children’s Foundation and Mark Bavis Leadership Foundation each have wonderful charities in which to support.