Last season’s Super Final champion FBs Terror makes just her third sophomore Gold Series start at Woodbine Racetrack on Thursday evening

and owner Mike Guerriero is hoping the pacing filly delivers a top-five performance and locks up a berth in this year’s season finale.

“As of now, we’re in (the Super Final) — if everybody stays still,” says the Moffat, ON resident, who shares ownership on the filly with his partners in FB Racing — Vince Mastrangelo and Anthony Nicoletta of Brampton, ON, and Mileo Monte of Campbellville, ON.

The top 10 fillies advance to the Nov. 13 Super Final, and at present FBs Terror sits in tenth spot with 39 points. The daughter of Western Terror and Speedy Shopper earned those points with a runner-up effort in the Sept. 27 Gold Final at Grand River Raceway, and Guerriero is hoping she can maintain the momentum she has attained since Fall arrived.

“She’s held her own the last couple weeks,” says the owner. “In open competition the last two weeks against that Bestofbothworlds horse from Kentucky, she’s held her own.”

FBs Terror started her season at Mohawk Racetrack in June, competing in the Fan Hanover Stake, where she finished sixth in her elimination and eighth in the consolation. She made her sophomore Ontario Sires Stakes debut at Georgian Downs on July 3, but finished a distant eighth in her Gold Elimination. Following that effort the filly did not return to competition until Aug. 27.

“About three or four weeks before she qualified she just kept getting bug after bug,” recalls Guerriero, noting that trainer Mario Macri struggled to get the filly’s white blood cell counts back to normal for almost two months before giving in and letting nature take its course. “We backed off for about a month and let things kind of go.”

Through that month long hiatus, Macri also discovered the filly had been suffering from exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhage, and began treating her with the diuretic Lasix. FBs Terror returned to action in an Aug. 27 overnight at Mohawk Racetrack and finished tenth. Macri opted to make her second start over the Flamboro Downs half-mile and FBs Terror delivered a stronger effort to finish fourth. Back at Flamboro Downs on Sept. 19 the filly finally found the winner’s circle with a 1:54.3 effort.

With only seven entries in the September Gold Series at Grand River, the fillies skipped the Gold Elimination and went straight to the Sept. 27 Gold Final and FBs Terror and regular reinsman Anthony Kerwood laid down a strong effort over a sloppy oval to claim the second-place share of the rich $170,000 purse and jump into tenth spot in the division standings.

In the last month the filly has made two starts, finishing fourth to Bestofbothworlds at Mohawk Racetrack on Oct. 8 and fifth to the same filly at Woodbine Racetrack on Oct. 22.

“It’s just been a bad year for her,” says Guerriero. “It’s been a little disappointing, but all in all she’s still a good horse.”

Kerwood will steer FBs Terror from Post 1 in Thursday’s Gold Elimination, which will see just one of the 11 starters fail to return to Woodbine for the Nov. 5 Gold Final. Division point leader Tiz To Dream gets the trailing Post 11, while Western Silk, who is undefeated in Gold Series action, gets Post 6.

A full sister to the ill fated Fast Pay, a winner of $424,516 who paced the fastest mile ever recorded (1:49) in Ontario Sires Stakes history last summer at Mohawk, FBs Terror will finish up her sophomore season and then turn her focus to a second career as a broodmare. Guerriero and his partners have yet to settle on a mate for the filly, but the owner is looking forward to spending some time around his future mare and her eventual foal.

“I like spending time around the animals. I enjoy being at the barn more than the racetrack. The racetrack is a little too unnerving,” says the owner, with a laugh. “I try not to miss a race though. I think I’ve only missed three in my four or five years that I’ve owned horses.”

Guerriero will be cheering FBs Terror home from the Woodbine Racetrack stands on Thursday evening, hoping she can secure a spot in next week’s Gold Final, and in the Super Final.

Post time for Woodbine Racetrack’s Thursday evening program is 7:30 p.m., with the three-year-old pacing fillies waging their last Gold Elimination battle in Race 5.

(O.S.S.)

To view Thursday’s entries, click here.