The Ontario Sires Stakes Grassroots 2010 season kicks off on Wednesday night at Western Fair Raceway with five $24,000 divisions for three-year-old filly trotters
and the local father-son duo of Dave and Dean Wall are hoping their homebred, Boots N Hearts, can step up against her much larger counterpart, last year’s Grassroots champion Ipromisenottotell.
Last year, Boots N Hearts placed 13th in the Grassroots’ standings after putting together a record of 1-1-2 in five outings and earning $26,460. The sorrel chestnut filly also won a Gold elim and picked up cheques in all but one of her 11 starts to earn a total of $55,029 as a freshman.
“I was very happy with her,” said ‘Mr. OSS’ Dave Wall, who owns, bred and drives the daughter of Striking Sahbra-Dell Ridge Savanna while his son, Dean, handles the training duties. “We raised her, so there wasn’t a lot of pressure on her. Anything we got we were happy with but she performed some pretty good races. Her performance wasn’t that bad but by the end of the year she finished fifth and that was probably her worst race. She wasn’t a real big mature filly and I think she was just getting a little tired.”
After her fifth-place effort in the Grassroots semi-finals, Boots N Hearts was turned out for the winter at the Wall’s farm in Komoka, just west of London, ON, where they currently have 30 horses in training - 18 of which are racing.
“We brought her [back] pretty slow and put lots of miles in her and she actually seemed to fill out. She always was good gaited but she got more solid,” Wall told Trot Insider. “I qualified her and she’s only raced once. She raced really well. She was in with older horses and she finished fourth in two minutes [2:01.4] over London, which was a pretty good mile.”
Although Wall says Boots N Hearts felt a little shaky leaving, she finished strong with a big :30.1 final quarter in the mud.
“She never was that big. I can see myself that she grew but when she gets matched up with the other ones in that group that she goes against she’s probably just the same size as she was last year,” laughed Wall. “I know one thing though, she tries - that’s all you can hope for.”
Boots N Hearts will start from Post 1 in fourth division (Race 9, post time 9:29 p.m.) on Wednesday and is the 2-1 second choice in the morning line. She will face the 7-5 favourite, Ipromisenottotell, who will leave from the two-hole for trainer Joe Hudon Jr.
“Joe raced her pretty careful and she was just getting better the whole year,” said Wall, assessing his competition. “She’s a big filly. She’s legit, she’ll probably end up in the Gold.”
In addition to the OSS, Boots N Hearts is staked to a few other events this year in Ontario including the Bud Light, Canadian Breeders and SBOA.
To view Wednesday’s entries, click here.