Drivers Jody Jamieson and Trevor Henry topped the point standings in the Ontario Regional Driving Championship at Western Fair Raceway on Wednesday evening with a pair of victories each to earn their place in the National Driving Championship
.
Despite sitting out for two of the eight legs due to late scratches, Jamieson, the 2001 World Driving Champion, put forth a consistent effort throughout the competition to earn a pair of wins, two seconds and two thirds. The 34-year-old resident of Moffat, Ont. guided Brooklets Typhoon to a six length wire-to-wire victory in 1:59.1 for trainer-owner Joe Pereira of Cambridge, Ont. in the second leg. He then sent Flipcup four-wide to come on for a 1:59.3 triumph in the seventh leg for trainer George McClure and owner-breeder Catherine McClure of Clinton, Ont.
Henry kicked off the eight-race competition with a nine length wire-to-wire victory aboard Manvers Short Cut in 1:56.2 for trainer Joe Pereira and The Merks Stable of New York. The 40-year-old resident of Arthur, Ont. later boosted his point total with another triumph in the fifth leg aboard pocket-sitter Carrland Hannah in 2:03.1 for trainer-owner Bruce Richardson of Arthur, Ont. Henry also earned two seconds and one third during the competition.
“It was great,” said Jamieson following the winners’ presentation. “Like I said earlier, it’s disappointing when you show up here and you have a couple of scratches but you have to take the good with the bad. I got real lucky with the ones I did get to drive so I’m pumped to be able to go to P.E.I.”
Jamieson and Henry will join Atlantic Regional representatives Ken Arsenault and Gilles Barrieau, Western Regional Representatives Dave Hudon and Brandon Campbell, and Quebec Regional Representatives Mario Charron and Sylvain LaCaille in the National Driving Championship on May 7 at Red Shores Racetrack & Casino at Charlottetown Driving Park in Prince Edward Island.
The winner of the National Driving Championship will represent Canada in the World Driving Championship, a 20-heat tournament, to be held at multiple racetracks in the United States from July 31 to August 5.
The point totals at the conclusion of the event are as follows:
Rank – Driver – Points
1. Jody Jamieson - 73
2. Trevor Henry - 64
3. Simon Allard - 53
4. Doug McNair - 52
5. Scott Zeron - 40
6. Scott Coulter - 34
7. Gord Brown - 27
8. John MacDonald - 24
For results from Wednesday’s harness racing card, click on the following link: Wednesday Results – Western Fair Raceway.
For more information on the NDC, click here.
Usually when people speak
Usually when people speak out, and are right, the people at the top do the right thing. Ah the good old days of horse racing, oh wait , were trying to make it better, the good new days of horse racing.
Great show put on by everybody no matter the result, you all stand out among the best. Well done to all involved, it adds a little excitement.
Was it the same judges, never mind.
Greg Parke
Dear; Gord Brown, would you
Dear; Gord Brown, would you be willing to file an appeal or protest against what happend in the last race? I know it will probally just be delayed until after the drivers championship as I guess the judges wanted to see a "home track" driver go to the final, but the thing I don't get is this is the same driver they handed a lengthy suspension to for tapping a horse to many times in the strecth, and when I say tapping I mean tapping no excessive force. I just don't understand how rules are applied once and not the other times given the same circumstances, I guess come molson night all the drivers should just run into eachother and cause the rest of the field to break as the westernfair judges have ruined it's reputation in my oppinion and I will no longer wager a single dollar
I just had a chance to look
I just had a chance to look at the 12th at Western fair for the drivers challenge.........watched it a number of times,,,,HOW could they not place Henrys horse,,,He looked like he was trying to keep his horse straight by the look of the horses head,,,turned to the left big time,<< BUT he hit Gords horse dragged her sideways a few steps and she broke,,, HOW was there not a placing
The judges and their
The judges and their questionable.... No absoulutley WRONG calls are a reason people are leaving the betting game. How could they possibly justify saying the horse was interfered with and broke on a race line and not send back the driver that caused it? I think the 3 judges who were on that night have the resopsibilty to directly tell the public how they justified their call. But after all this is the same track where they declared a winner that went inside 10 pylons without being forced out and later having it changed in an appeal. If horsmen can be fined days and money for wrongdoing why don't the judges? But I think I know what will happen their will be a revised finish, after Trevor participates in the driving championship of course
Thank-you Mr. Brown for your
Thank-you Mr. Brown for your candid and honest post. I think that there are far too many instances where it looks like judges make decisions based on whether a horse is a favourite, or whether it is a stakes race, or a driving competition, for that matter. A foul is a foul, and it should be handled objectively at all times. It's very courageous of you to put in an inquiry where many other drivers would have let it go. There is far too much of this going on in harness racing , especially at WEG where a driver's inquiry is as rare as a Sasquatch sighting.
To Maurie and Steve, First
To Maurie and Steve,
First of all Maurie, if you had paid attention you would have noticed that a scratch meant an automatic 5 points for a driver. As for saying my driving performance was disappointing, first of all I put the majority of horses in a position where the trainers wanted them. It just didn't work out. You should come and try it some time instead of sitting at home with a long set of dirty lines. Take that any way you want.
To Steve: You are both right and wrong. I did go directly to the phone. I know a placing of Trevor would have put him out of the top two. I would have felt terrible but I was also driving for someone too. Just to clarify how bad it was, as you know my horse was a loaded second over and Trevor came with no room and actually hooked my horse's left hind leg and pulled it sideways with his wheel. Did the judges make the right call? Absolutely not. My guess is because it was a driver's competition. If that was their excuse it was an awfully poor one. If my horse was not affected why does it have an ix beside it? That would be a good question for them. I am sure of one thing, we will see no response from them on this web site.
Gord Brown
In reply to To Maurie and Steve, First by Gord Brown
You're all class Gord :-(
You're all class Gord :-(
Taking a Page from Maurie's
Taking a Page from Maurie's Book of Ideas. ( You would have to have Owners and trainers on Board for one Card to make this work and that may be an issue) Perhaps Guaranteed money could allieviate that part. But here it goes anyway.
For a Driver Competition You have a Panel of Handicappers select which horse is the best and so on down to eighth. Giving the best horse post 7 and so on down to 1. Then you give each driver Post 1 to 8 so they all have the best horse from post 7 and the long shot from post 1 and a drive from each position, thus making the competition more about driving than post and horse draw. Could make a more interesting day for drivers and fans.
Maurie, Just wanted to
Maurie,
Just wanted to clarify that Doug received 5 points for a scratch in the first race so he did receive more points than Gord.
We use the same point scoring system that they use in the World Driving Championship.
I thought your suggestion for scoring was very interesting. Thanks for the feedback!
Racing is all about winning
Racing is all about winning so scoring the drivers as we did (1st=15pts, 2nd=10pts, 3rd=7pts, 4th=5pts, 5th=4pts, 6th=3pts, 7th=2pts, 8th=1pt) is simple and makes sense. However, with a short 8 race drivers competition, luck can REALLY affect the outcome.
The 1st race of the competition was a good example. Doug's horse was scratched so he gets 0 pts whereas Gord's horse is post-1 favorite and finishes 6th for 3 pts. As a fan/bettor/judge, i'd say that Gord's driving performance was disappointing yet he gets more pts than Doug.
So, i used the win odds as the bettor's ranking (mostly horsepower and post position) then measured the drivers actual performance against these expectations. Using the 1st competition race again, Trevor was the longshot (win wagering was 7th highest in the race) and he finished 1st so gets a score of 7-1=6pts. Gord was favorite(#1 in win bets), finished 6th, so gets 1-6=-5pts. And Doug, who was scratched, still unfortunately gets 0pts but it seems more reasonable in this scoring system.
Using this alternative scoring system produced different results but not that different from the official results.
1. +10 T Henry
2. +6 J Jamieson
3. +5 S Allard
4. +3 S Coulter
4. -3 S Zeron
6. -5 Jo Macdonald
7. -8 D Mcnair
7. -8 G Brown
Jody was amazingly consistent meeting/beating the bettor's prediction in 5 of his 6 races (83%) and that miss came from 2nd favorite Northern Gem who finished 3rd (-1pts). Simon delivered on 6 of his 8 drives (75%) while Trevor and Scott Coulter hit 5 of their 8 drives (63%).
Trevor delivered the biggest bettor surprise (+6), going wire to wire with longshot Manvers Short Cut and then followed it with a come-from-behind 4th place finish with longshot Dodgy Dealer (+4pts). Gord had a disappointing day missing big 3 times at low odds (-5pts, -5pts, -4pts) and the long commute to the half mile track didn't help John's game much either.
In the end, Trevor and Jody were outstanding and named "best of the best".
In reply to Racing is all about winning by Maurie
Another interesting thought
Another interesting thought struck me when looking at this data.
Who had the luck of the draw on their side for this event ?
Well if the win odds did predict order of finish then that would mean
every horse finished exactly where the win odds predicted and the driver had no effect.
In this case, the final results using the standard scoring points would have been:
1. D Mcnair 70
2. T Henry 53
3. J Jamieson 50
4. S Allard 49
5. S Zeron 44
6. G Brown 42
7. S Coulter 35
8. Jo Macdonald 28
Which tells us that:
o London bettors prefer their regular drivers as Doug and Trevor drove 7 of the 16 top-2 favorites
o Doug had the best horses with 3 favorites and 1 second favorite on the day
o John had an unlucky disadvantage as not 1 of his horses were predicted to hit the board
o Trevor and Jody had the horsepower to get the job done ... AND SUCCEEDED !
In reply to Another interesting thought by Maurie
To me it was great watching
To me it was great watching this unfold but i have a real problem with what happened in the last race with the interference at the 3/4 pole. Once again our judges seem to have made a questionable call. I am pretty sure this was a judges inquire. I would really like a explanation from the judges as to why they made the call they did.
There has to be something set up by the ORC to explain these types of calls to the betting public. I know a decision has to be made and there must have been a reason why the call was made so there should be no reason why their call can not be made public.
Thanks Steve Jewitt
In reply to To me it was great watching by Sonny jewitt
Sorry i forgot to
Sorry i forgot to congratulate Jody and Trevor in my first post good luck to both of you down at Red Shores racetrack . I am hoping to maybe making a road trip down for this. Pretty sure this would be a good time.
Good luck
Sonny Jewitt