Sometimes being first at the finish line in a harness race requires that a trainer invest his time and research looking for a champion well before a horse is of racing age. Such has been the case for John Kopas

, himself of extraordinary racing blood. The son of Canadian Hall of Famer Jack Kopas grew up around champions and gets up pretty early in the morning in quest of a future purchase.

“You have to get to know the farm managers,” he said the other morning.

With Raising Rachel he had seen her many times before she was even a yearling at Cool Creek Farm where she was raised for breeders Diane Ingham and Harry Rutherford.

“She was very well conformed with a real intelligent head,” recalled Kopas.

Interest was so high in Raising Rachel that prior to the 2007 Harrisburg Yearling sale Kopas had discovered other local owners interested in the Yankee Glide-sired filly. Mel Hartmann, Doug Millard and the late-George Hempt decided to pool their resources rather than bid against one another. Yet the $74,000 price tag would indicate that those weren’t the only men in the room looking for a standout trotting filly.

For Kopas, who gained a reputation over the years with pacing fillies, the idea of having a trotter in the barn was unique.

“We had some success over the last five years with pacing fillies and suddenly everyone gets the impression that’s all I can train,” he said with a chuckle.

The fact is that Kopas had done quite well in the last couple of years with horses he purchased as yearlings from the Hempt Farms collection. While the family has been loyal patrons of the Kopas clan going back 38 years, Kopas rarely purchased the most expensive yearlings. Part of his success can be directly linked to his brother Roger, the farm manager at Hempt for the last dozen years.

“It doesn’t hurt when you can have someone provide significant information about a horse. Sometimes they’ll point you in a direction you wouldn’t have gone,” noted Kopas.

John liked Raising Rachel so much he took 25 percent ownership interest at the outset, but following the sale he was approached by Terry Rutherford (son of the breeder) and elected to split his share.

Kopas hadn’t raced a horse at the Meadowlands in 12 years prior to Raising Rachel’s recent starts in the Del Miller Memorial and win last Saturday in a Hambletonian Oaks elimination. Though eleigible to the program, racing in New Jersey Sire Stakes with the filly last year and this year was not in the cards.

“We race for really good money in Ontario,” he said defending the stables decision to stay north.

That decision didn’t turn out badly at all during Raising Rachel’s juvenile campaign. With seven wins in eight starts, her lone defeat in the Peaceful Way final, the classy miss earned $168,109. Kopas had been pointing her towards the juvenile Crown but when the filly got sick he quit for the year.

In 2009 Raising Rachel has come to play each week. Competing against a group of well-matched sophomores this spring at Mohawk she captured a division of the Casual Breeze then went on to finish with two solid seconds in the rich Elegant Image elimination and finals.

Expectations were quite high when Kopas decided to send the filly to New Jersey to race for the first time in the state she was bred.

On June 17 in a $165,500 division of the Del Miller at the Meadowlands driver Jack Moiseyev put her on the front end before the half and looked solid heading into the stretch. In the final stages of the race Raising Rachel was overtaken and wound up finishing third for the first time in her standout career.

“I was disappointed,” said Moiseyev. “We found out after the race that she was a little bit sick.”

Despite the loss Moiseyev entered the Oaks last Saturday with great expectations and drove the filly to a personal best 1:54.1 clocking winning one of four $35,000 elimination races quite handily.

When questioned after the race why he pulled the pocket before the three-quarters on the 6-5 favourite Honorable Daughter, Moiseyev was honest: “I thought she (Honorable Daughter) was getting tired and I didn’t want to get trapped in.”

The drive was a convincing tribute to the driver’s confidence in the horse. “If you keep her covered up she’ll give you everything she’s got in that last quarter,” said Moiseyev.

Both Kopas and Moiseyev have seen their careers reborn in the last five years. The trainer had gone through some lean years training a minimal number of young horses for the Hempts and few others. Moiseyev, one of the best drivers at the Meadowlands in the 90’s and early part of the 21st century seemed to be the odd-man-out when the driver colony became crowded.

He decided to make the move full time to race on the WEG circuit back in 2004 and hasn’t looked back. “It’s been great up here, especially since I met a nice girl Joanne Colville,” he said.

Moiseyev felt no rust returning to the scene of some of his best performances. Driving at the Meadowlands last Saturday was no different than when he left. For Jackie “Mo” Hambletonian Day will be special.

In 1991 he piloted Giant Victory to an upset win in his very first Hambletonian drive. The victory came just weeks after he captured the Meadowlands Pace with Precious Bunny.

“That was an unbelievable day,” he reflected. “To grow up in New Jersey I could never imagine actually winning that race. Then to win the Hambo and the Jug in the same year was incredible.”

What made the Giant Victory effort so sweet is that it came quite unexpectedly.

“He warmed up terribly that day, but when it came time to race he smoothed out,” said the driver the race 18 years ago still fresh in his mind. “By the second heat I felt confident and he raced even better.”

For John Kopas his greatest Meadowlands moment came back in 1989 on Hambletonian Day as well. Only Kopas’ came aboard the great champion pacing mare Armbro Feather, who set a world record that afternoon.

The secret to the success of any trainer/driver combination is teamwork.

As Moiseyev points out “he can make adjustments to them when they are training, but being in a race is something totally different.”

On the flip side Kopas gives Moiseyev the ultimate compliment. “My father, who if you know him doesn’t give out compliments that often, called Moiseyev ‘extremely knowledgeable,’ when he returns with input following a race.”

When it comes to Raising Rachel, neither driver nor trainer see any reason to make any adjustments. While the two men’s stars have aligned in Ontario, both are hoping the filly will see her star shine on Saturday in the division’s most prestigious event, the Hambletonian Oaks.

(Jay Bergman for the Hambletonian Society)