She may not have the profile of most of her counterparts but The Mistress enters Thursday’s $60,000 Blizzard Pacing Series final at Woodbine Racetrack as a

legitimate upset contender.

The three-year-old daughter of Astreos - One Enforser has only competed in one leg of the series and that produced an impressive off-the-pace second-place finish in last week’s second round.

“I was a bit surprised with how good she was,” said trainer Mark Horner who also campaigned the filly’s mother. “Considering she had been fighting some sickness and we had to scratch her out of the first leg, I was really pleased with her.”

The Mistress was one of Horner’s best two-year-olds training down but a stall injury set her back in her training schedule and she did not make it to the racetrack until September.

The filly made 10 trips postward by season’s end and showed a win and three second-place finishes to her credit.

“If you look at her lines, she has had bad luck with post draws and some bad racing luck along the way,” explained Horner. “She is better than her record shows and she came out of last week’s race really good so I think she’s sitting on a good race this time.

“With a filly like her, who didn’t really put it all together last year, you have the option of putting her away or racing her through the winter in these types of series. She fit a bunch of them and will have a good chance to improve along the way, so we’ve decided to go this route.”

The Mistress will leave from post six on Thursday night with Sylvain Filion picking up the drive. The filly, who is owned and bred by Ray Webb of Dashwood, Ontario, has been installed as a 7-1 choice in the morning line.

Miss Sand Creek is the filly to beat, having won twice impressively from off-the-pace in the two preliminary legs. Alex Lilley will steer the 2-1 morning line choice from post nine in the 10-horse field.

First race post for Thursday’s program of harness racing is 7:30 p.m.

To view the entries, click here.

(WEG)