Wish N Win, a five-year-old mare rich with pacing pedigree, will make her first lifetime start on the trot tonight at Western Fair Raceway

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“She was never really happy on the pace, it just wasn’t her cup of tea,” explained her owner, Morag Watt of Clinton, Ont., whose husband, Jim, handles the mare’s training.

“She raced on the pace, and obviously did okay, winning over $30,000, but she’d reached a threshold on the ladder of condition races. We had bought her as a yearling from Bob Hamather as a potential broodmare so we weren’t going to go the claiming route with her.

“When she jogged free-legged her gait of preference was always trotting, so my husband decided to train her down on the trot, and she loves it.”

As a pacer, Wish N Win made 44 life starts with five wins and $39,401 earned. Last week the mare qualified on the trot for the first time at Mohawk Racetrack where she was timed in 2:00.1. She’ll now make her pari-mutuel trotting debut tonight at Western Fair in the second race where she’s drawn Post 3. Stuart Sowerby is listed to drive.

When looking at Wish N Win’s pedigree it is hard to find the reason for her preference for the diagonal gait. Her sire is Intrepid Seelster, a millionaire pacer whose sire is the leading pacing sire in North America, Camluck. Her dam, By Desire, is by another leading pacing sire, Artsplace, and the mare has produced two outstanding pacers, Wholly Louy and Legal Litigator, who have both won well over $600,000 in their racing careers to date.

“This is the first horse in his 30 or 40 years of training that Jim has tried to switch a horse over from pacing to trotting. If she hadn’t trained down so well on the trot we were going to breed her this Spring,” noted Morag, who is the chair of Clinton Raceway as well as a director of Standardbred Canada.

“The question we have now when we do breed her is do we breed her to a trotter or pacer?” laughed Morag.

“I’ve always said that you can learn so much about horses reading books, but the problem is the horse doesn’t read the book! This has been an adventure for us and we’re excited to see how she does.”

Western Fair's Friday card of live racing will get underway at 7:05 p.m.

To view entries for Western Fair's Friday card of live racing, click the following link: Friday Entries - Western Fair

(Western Fair Raceway)