After making a deal for the winning Mohawk Million starting spot for the first two years of the buy-in harness race, Brad Grant is hoping he will have his own two-year-old trotter to send postward in the 2022 edition.

“I believe in what (Woodbine Entertainment) is doing and I think others believe the same thing,” Grant said in an interview with The Canadian Press's Dan Ralph, published by the Toronto Star. “Obviously, the Mohawk Million is a race you want to be a part of and win and that’s really the reason we do look at buying into it.”

Owners of the 2022 Mohawk Million slots were revealed last week. For the third year in a row, the longtime Standardbred owner purchased one of the nine $100,000 slots available for the race that will be contested in the fall on September 24 at Woodbine Mohawk Park. (An additional slot will be awarded to the winner of the William Wellwood Memorial on August 27.)

“I’ve had a bit of luck the last couple of years but every time I buy a slot it’s with the full intention that it’s going to be one of my own trotters that gets there,” said Grant, who was part of the group that sold a slot to the connections of inaugural winner Venerate and made a deal for his slot with the owners of last year's champion Venerable. “It hasn’t worked out that way but the other option was to do what we did and we’ve been lucky.

“It’s a long way off but I do have some very nice trotters and my trainers are very pleased with them so again, keeping my fingers crossed that I get one of my own there and hopefully I don’t have to go through the process of picking the winner.”

To read the Toronto Star article in its entirety, click here.

(With files from the Toronto Star)