She was competitive during her freshman campaign, but her connections realized Springtime Volo would need a little more time to learn how to control her limbs and expected to see much more from her as a sophomore.

“She is still very big and quite tall, so she needed her two-year-old season to grow into herself,” explained her conditioner, Jan Johnson. “When any two-year-old is that big they definitely need some extra time.”

The daughter of Classic Photo-Silver Springs, who is owned by Kentuckiana Racing Stable and Jorgen Jahre Jr., trotted 11 race miles last year, with two victories, two second place finishes and a third. The filly earned nearly $36,000 and didn’t seem to quite measure up to the best in her division.

This year Springtime Volo has raced five times, exclusively at the Meadowlands, with three triumphs, a second and a third, while amassing more than $160,000 in purse money. She finished second to her stablemate, Glide Power, in the $200,000 New Jersey Sire Stakes Final on June 12, third in the $72,400 Coaching Club Trotting Oaks on July 2, and then captured her $146,250 Del Miller Memorial Trot division in a lifetime best 1:53.2 on July 16, before winning her Hambletonian Oaks elimination over Southwind Samurai on July 31.

“She has been very strong this season,” Johnson, a 59-year-old resident of Lighthouse Point, Fla., and a native of Sweden, said.

Springtime Volo is the first foal out of her dam and if she hits the wire first in the Oaks she will be following in her hoofprints, as Silver Springs triumphed in this same race, as well as the female counterpart of the World Trotting Derby, in 2004. Her sire, Classic Photo, was the 2005 Hambletonian favourite and finished second behind Vivid Photo, during a season where he was victorious in the American-National, Canadian Trotting Classic and the Stanley Dancer Trot.

Johnson, who also trained Silver Springs, acknowledges that while Springtime Volo does possess some of her mother’s attributes, she really is very different.

“She has her (Silver Springs’) attitude and the same willingness to trot, but this filly is much taller and more feminine, so gait-wise they are not at all the same, but attitude-wise they are the same,” he said. “She is nice to be around and she likes to win. She doesn’t have that quick speed, but she is a grinder and she will always keep coming. She is much better when she has someone to follow.”

Although the Oaks trophy is undoubtedly one of the most coveted pieces of hardware for three-year-old trotting fillies, Johnson is approaching Saturday’s contest like he would any other.

“We will have (an inside) hole, so that’s a good thing,” he explained. “But it’s the same thing with any race, you need a good trip. No one can go out and cut the mile all by themselves. There are four or five fillies that are about the same, so we need a little luck and a good trip.

“If everything goes well after this race, she will go to Lexington, then to the American-National and on to the Breeders Crown.”

This story courtesy of Harness Racing Communications, a division of the U.S. Trotting Association. For more information, visit www.ustrotting.com.