O'Brien Award winner Nijinsky "looks like a million bucks" as he continues preparing for his four-year-old season with a full stakes schedule ahead, according to West Wins Stable co-owner Casie Coleman.

Coleman, who was a guest on Woodbine Mohawk Park's broadcast for International Women's Day over the weekend, shared an update on the Anthony Beaton-trained millionaire pacer, who led all horses for earnings in the nation last year with a perfect nine-for-nine Canadian campaign that included victories in the North America Cup as well as divisions of the Simcoe Stakes and Somebeachsomewhere Stakes and multiple Ontario Sires Stakes. Nijinsky, who also won the Monument Circle and was runner-up in the Meadowlands Pace, Breeders Crown and Progress Pace stateside, was named the 2024 Three-Year-Old Pacing Colt of the Year at the O'Brien Awards last month over his stablemate and defending divisional champion Legendary Hanover.

During the Mohawk interview on Saturday, Coleman expressed high praise for Nijinsky, who has trained in 2:30 since returning to the Beaton stable at Classy Lane Training Centre.

"That's pretty much walking for a horse like Nijinsky," noted Coleman. "But [Tony] said he's sharp, sound, healthy, looks like a million bucks. He's feeling very, very good and we're fully staking him. We believe in him. I know he's a four-year-old racing against the Open horses, but I wouldn't trade him for anybody in the Open ranks. I'm very excited to bring him back."

Nijinsky's first stakes engagement of the season is expected to be the Graduate Series leg on May 31 at Mohawk.

"We're going to miss the first two four-year-old races. The [Canadian-Sired] Graduate and the Confederation Cup, it's just too early, in my opinion, for the stakes season we're staking him too," explained Coleman. "So our plan is his first stakes start would be the Graduate at Mohawk [on May 31]. So I'm sure Tony will have a couple qualifiers and maybe a start or two into him before then."

After winning just one of his 10 races as a two-year-old, the Bettors Delight-Pirouette Hanover son went 11-for-17 as a sophomore and lifted his career earnings to $1.7 million for owners West Wins Stable, John Fielding and Mark Dumain. 

As co-owner of two of the sport's top glamour boys last year, there were no shortage of highlights for Coleman, including Nijinsky's 1:48.1 victory in the $1 million North America Cup.

"It was a great night," recalled Coleman. "We had high hopes coming into the race: I knew both colts had been training great, Tony said they were feeling great, we had great drivers on them. The draw wasn't overly great with 'Legend' -- he had the eight, I believe -- and 'Ninja' drew a little bit better [with post four], but when one was parked first-over and one was parked second-over pretty much the whole mile, I wasn't liking that all that much. But seeing 'Ninja' coming down the lane when he flipped, I didn't know what to expect because he'd been out the whole mile, but I just knew how tough of a horse he was, and it was just phenomenal how good he was that night. Props to Louis Roy keeping him going that kind of mile. And Anthony had him completely ready to rock and roll that night. And the horse was just magnificent. That was a fun night, for sure."

Legendary Hanover later provided Coleman with an elusive Meadowlands Pace victory but Nijinsky was also impressive in defeat.

"I've had terrible luck in the Meadowlands Pace and to finally not only get it done, but have 'Ninja' also get second [in a 1:46.3 mile] that night, that was insane. He's quite an animal."

Coleman reflected on the careers of Legendary Hanover, who is now standing stud at Southwind Farms in Pennington, New Jersey, and his older half brother, Canadian record holder Linedrive Hanover, now retired as a companion horse at Anvil And Lace Farm in Paris, Kentucky. She also spoke about her driving and training career and current roles in yearling management for Beaton and as a yearling sales consultant for trainer Andrew Harris. The full interview is available below. 

(Standardbred Canada)