When The Game Plan heads back to Rideau Carleton Raceway for this Friday’s $130,000 Gold Final, the two-year-old trotter will be accompanied by

all of his owners.

“Oh yeah, we’ll all be there,” says Lois Grieve, whose husband Gary shares ownership on the gelding with trainer John Kopas of Milton, and LLK Stable and Anthony Wagner of Mississauga. “We’re having fun, let’s just put it that way, and we’re going to ride the wave while we can, if it stops fine, but we’ve had a good roll now.”

The Union resident says all of The Game Plan’s connections were also on hand for last week’s Gold Elimination, and as the gelding and driver Jack Moiseyev sprinted down the stretch to claim the 1:59.2 victory, they did their best to carry him home on a wave of enthusiastic support.

“His nickname’s Harry. Harry Rutherford’s the breeder and John nicknamed him Harry,” explains Grieve.

“We were all yelling, ‘Come on Harry; Harry; come on Harry,’ and everybody was looking at us and they said, ‘Who’s Harry?’” she adds with a chuckle. “It’s been exciting and we’re having fun.”

The Game Plan is the first trotter the Grieve’s have owned in their decades long association with Kopas, and the couple were a little nervous about their diagonally-gaited youngster’s prospects, but The Game Plan put them at ease very early in his career.

“This was exceptionally exciting because myself and Gary, we had never had a trotter, we’d always had pacers,” says the longtime owner. “We thought, ‘Ah, we’ll make a change,’ and we bought into him and I was really nervous, but boy he sure put us at ease when we watched him train.”

Sold at last fall’s Canadian Yearling Sale, the half-brother to $1.4 million winner Pure Ivory had a lump on the front of one ankle that caused many prospective buyers to shake their head and move on to the next horse, but Kopas was confident that the problem was short term and when bidding started to stall on the son of Kadabra and Image Control, the veteran horseman was quick to make the final offer of $20,000. Kopas’ intuition proved correct and the young trotter has never had a moment of trouble with his ankle, although he did cause Kopas a bit of worry with other aspects of his behaviour.

“He had a lump on the front of one ankle that I think concerned a lot of people, but it was just fluid, and in my opinion at the time it was probably just from banging it on the gate or on the stall or whatever, and fortunately three weeks after he was in the barn it was gone and he’s been sound ever since, never had any problems with him that way,” says Kopas.

“Out on the track he never gave me any problems, but in the barn he was always, well we found him a couple times up over the gate and that kind of thing, so that’s why we made a gelding out of him,” continues the horseman. “I was afraid he was going to hurt himself in the stall and so I gelded him, I guess, just before Christmas.”

In spite of his off-track antics The Game Plan progressed steadily through his lessons and Kopas was hopeful that the gelding would be a player on the provincial stakes scene heading into two-year-old qualifiers at Mohawk Racetrack in June. The young trotter won his first qualifier, on June 16, with a 2:03 effort, came back the next week for a runner-up finish in 2:02, and then posted a second victory on July 2 in a smart 2:00.

“The thing I wondered about, you know, he never really showed any real flashes of quick speed training, but I kind of thought once he got in a qualifier, and in with a bunch of other horses, he would probably improve that way, and fortunately he did,” notes Kopas.

The Game Plan made his Gold Series debut in the season opener at Kawartha Down on July 7 and delivered a third-place result from the outside Post 8, but was forced to miss the Gold Final after coming up sick following the elimination. The gelding was healthy enough for the second Gold event, but it fell victim to the summer heat wave that swept through the province and prompted Mohawk Racetrack to cancel their July 21 card of racing. With no Gold Final on offer for the following week, Mohawk crafted a conditioned event for the two-year-old trotting colts and geldings, and The Game Plan proved he had regained his full health with a three and one-half length win in 1:59.3.

Last week Moiseyev eased the youngster away from Post 6 and sat fourth through the early going before rolling up the outside to the one length victory and the reinsman may be looking at a similar strategy from Post 5 in Thursday’s $130,000 Gold Final. The other elimination winner, Cradabra, will be handicapped by the outside Post 8, while reigning Gold Final champion Good Sound Advice will defend his title from Post 6. Kopas notes that Heres The Magic at Post 2 is another horse to keep an eye on Friday.

“We were really pleased with the draw,” notes the horseman. “That colt of Nifty Norman’s, Heres The Magic, is a pretty nice horse and obviously (Bill) James’s colt, Good Sound Advice, I mean he did win the final at Kawartha. You’ve got to kind of watch out for all of them, but those two in particular I think.”

The freshman trotting colts will wage their second $130,000 battle in Race 5 on Friday evening, with the first race rolling in behind the Rideau Carleton Raceway starting car at 6:30 p.m.

(OSS)

To view entries for Friday's card of harness racing, click the following link: Friday Entries – Rideau Carleton Raceway.