Wilson was killed last Saturday night when he was struck by Forbidden Dreams, a two-year-old horse he was preparing for a race at Presque Isle Downs in Erie, Penn. He was kicked in the head and chest, treated at the scene, but died of heart failure.

"Jack went the way he wanted to go. He was with his horses and he was doing what he wanted to do. If you wrote the lines for a movie, that would have been the way he went out," said Nick Gonzalez, a Fort Erie trainer and friend of Wilson.

Wilson was remembered on Monday in a moment of silence at the Fort Erie Race Track. His horses scheduled to run that day and Tuesday were scratched. All competing jockeys that day wore black armbands in honour of Wilson.

Originally from Toronto, Wilson fell into horse racing after serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force in the Second World War. He became a pioneer when he opened an equestrian therapy pool near Woodbine to treat injured horses.

"He was one of the guys who would make a dollar and put it back into the business. Once he migrated down to Fort Erie," said Gonzalez, "he had that same thought process and built a swimming pool across from the Fort Erie Race Track. He sold that and opened a exercising facility in Fort Erie that trainers used."

That's how he became well-known in Fort Erie, a welcome sight for sore eyes to trainers who would come down from Woodbine with horse health problems, said Gonzalez.

He met Wilson at the beginning of his training career in the 1970s. They found common ground in dealing with bottom-end horses and formed a friendship.

"I was talking to him the morning of that eventful day," said Gonzalez. "He was getting his work done at Fort Erie before heading down to Pennsylvania. Jack talked like a guy who was going to live forever," he said. "Talking about the babies he had bought, and looking forward to running that baby in the stake race. It was probably what kept him going. He always had that optimism. He was still sharp as a tack at 88."

Wilson had close to 3,000 entries in his career and was close to winning 300 races around North America.

A funeral will be held Friday in Fort Erie.