'Rubicon' Hoping To Buck Odds

Published: July 30, 2009 11:38 am EDT

With his second straight Post 7 assignment, the odds are stacked against three-year-old pacing colt RM Rubicon in Sunday’s Ontario Sires Stakes Grassroots event at Clinton Raceway, but then odds makers would never have predicted that the gelding would even start in the OSS

program after a serious injury paralyzed his tongue and lower lip as a yearling.

“He is the first colt I’ve ever had trained. I’ve always sold them at the yearling sales. He was kept because he got hurt quite badly just before he was to be sold,” explains owner and breeder Ronald Parker of Teeswater, Ont. “His halter got hooked on a gate post, and besides the cuts and scrapes and bruises, his halter had tightened and cut off the nerves in his nose. His tongue was paralyzed and his bottom lip hung like he took a stroke.”

Veterinarians advised Parker that the son of Apaches Fame and Cherubine would recover mobility in his nose, but that it would be a long process. With eating a challenge for the gelding for almost a year, Parker never expected that RM Rubicon would become a racehorse, let alone an OSS competitor, but the young pacer gradually recovered and his owner says it is now difficult to tell that there was ever anything wrong.

“You can hardly notice that anything had happened to him now, but he was quite a sorry looking case for a number of months,” says Parker.

Once it was clear that RM Rubicon would recover, Parker sent him to trainer Terry Fritz. The Walkerton, Ont. resident taught the youngster how to race, and RM Rubicon made his debut in July of his two-year-old season. In three freshman starts, the pacer recorded one third, one sixth and one victory, earning $3,970.

After a winter off, Fritz prepped RM Rubicon for his sophomore campaign with an April 25 qualifier at Hanover Raceway, and then entered the gelding in a non-winners class at Hanover on May 2. RM Rubicon cruised to an eight-length victory in that first outing, kicking off a season that has been beyond imagination for the Parkers.

“It has been quite a summer for my wife Marg and I,” says Parker. “He has had quite a bit of success until recently.”

Since his season opening victory, RM Rubicon has posted two more wins, two seconds and one fifth for earnings of $20,025. In his first two Grassroots appearances the gelding enjoyed the advantageous Post 1 and delivered a second and a fifth-place effort for a total of 30 points, just 20 points shy of the current cut off for a post season berth.

Thanks to her son’s success, Cherubine now has a couple of companions to help while away the time at Parker’s Teeswater farm.

“I had cut back to one (broodmare), but I’ve added a few with Rubicon’s earnings,” admits Parker. “I’ve added two more.”

The Parker’s will be on hand to watch RM Rubicon in Sunday’s eighth race, but they are tempering their expectations due to the outside post and some health wrinkles that Fritz has been working to iron out.

Among the colts RM Rubicon and Fritz will face in their $24,000 Grassroots division is former Gold Series competitor Pictonian Pride, which will start from Post 5.

The talented three-year-old pacing colts kick off Clinton Raceway’s Sunday matinee at 1:30 p.m. and are also featured in Races 2, 4, 5, and 8 through 12.

Click here to view the harness racing entries for Sunday at Clinton.

(OSS)

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