The ugly duckling won. So did the drop dead gorgeous filly.

The historic $104,490 Western Canada Pacing Derby for three-year-old colts and geldings and the $123,880 Century Casino Filly Pace for three-year-old fillies were both held Saturday, Oct. 18 at Century Mile.

Hands Off Harry -- unsightly as a yearling -- set sail down the stretch after a first-over move winning The Pacing Derby easily in 1:53.2; Custard Dolce -- the ravishing filly -- took the Filly Pace after overcoming some heart-dropping traffic congestion to win going away in 1:54.2.

“Hands Off Harry was a small, ugly, ratty little thing with a big cut on his leg when I bought him sight unseen from my parents for $3,000 as a yearling,” said trainer and 100 per cent owner Nathan Sobey. “He was a head turner for all the wrong reasons. My first impression was, ‘Boy, did I make a mistake; I just wasted $3,000.'"

Two years later, standing proudly in the winner’s circle, Hands Off Harry looked like a colossus.

“You wouldn’t know it was the same animal,” said Sobey. “He started to grow and fill out at the end of his two-year-old season. Now he looks like a racehorse.”

He certainly did Saturday night pumping his legs like an oil derrick for his eighth career victory -- winning by 3-1/2 lengths over Outlawminutbyminut.

You wouldn’t recognize Sobey from four months ago either. In June, he was in a racing accident that left him with a broken T2 vertebrae and a cracked left shoulder blade, and out of the sulky.

Remarkably, Sobey never watched the Derby.

“I hid in my barn. I do that whenever I have a horse in a big race. I get too nervous so I just go off somewhere by myself," he explained. “I don’t get nervous on the track. But standing on the sidelines is somehow different, especially when it’s with a horse I own by myself.”

Foaled in Ontario, Hands Off Harry will probably be headed there again.

“Put it this way, he will either be sold or I’ll be taking him there myself,” said Sobey.

“It’s the same thing with Mademechangemymind,” Sobey said of the runner-up in the Filly Pace, who has been first or second in 15 of 20 starts. Sobey also owns 100 per cent of Mademechangemymind.

Together those two horses - with a total investment of just $10,000 - have won just under $400,000.

“They’ll both be going somewhere.”

With the Derby’s first-place cheque of $52,245, Hands Off Harry -- a son of All Bets Off out of the deceased mare Hands Off Hanover - has now won $152,875 from eight wins and seven seconds in just 16 starts.

The only time Hands Off Harry wasn’t first or second was in a fourth-place finish against older horses in a condition race at Calgary’s Century Downs on Aug. 30.

Sobey believes Hands Off Harry is going to be the best horse he’s ever trained, which is saying plenty since Sobey has had many good horses led by Divine Art, who is still racing in Ontario. Divine Art has won $580,185. At one point Divine Art won 17 races in a row.

“Divine Art did everything right on the track. But I don’t think she’s as good as 'Harry,'” said Sobey. “He’s got a bright future ahead of him.

“When you pull the plugs on Harry, he goes from zero to 60. Now. He’s explosive.

“He’s been good all year,” said Sobey. “But not being an Alberta-bred he wasn’t eligible for all the rich Sires Stakes races.”

While the Derby was, of course, his biggest win, the second-most money Hands Off Harry won in his flourishing career was $29,600 for finishing second to Momas Work of Art’s monster mile in the $118,400 Ralph Klein Memorial on Aug. 2. Hands Off Harry was bet down to 15 cents on the dollar that day.

“He wasn’t 100 per cent that day,” said Sobey. “He was battling a little bug. He just didn’t have the same steam turning for home.”

Saturday was different.

Driven confidently and perfectly by Mike Hennessy, Hands Off Harry was the 6-5 betting favourite, returning $4.40 to win.

“He really kicks home,” said Hennessy. “He really fires.”

While Hands Off Harry had clear sailing in the Derby, the same certainly wasn’t the case in the Filly Pace where a loud gasp rolled through Century Mile when 1-5 favourite Custard Dolce, who had to start from the disadvantageous nine-hole, got boxed-in down the backstretch by Kootenay Leia, who made an early move and trapped Custard Dolce.

“It was too early -- way too early -- to pull her at that point,” said Custard Dolce’s driver Phil Giesbrecht, who pulled off a sensational winning drive.

“I had a few options. They were going enough that I was pretty sure there would be be a gap somewhere,” Giesbrecht said of a first quarter in : 28.1 and a half in :56.4. “I figured the speed wouldn’t keep up.

“And she drives so well,” he said of the incredible Custard Dolce, who came into the Filly Pace with 15 wins in 19 starts and who has now already won $374,725 -- mainly in stakes races.

Shuffled back to sixth, Giesbrecht was somehow able to find that ‘gap’ when the got on the back of Brandon Campbell, who had moved three-wide with Threecurtaincalls and then had to pull five-wide to escape the traffic and find a clear path that led to the winner’s circle.

“She wasn’t going to lose with that trip,” said Giesbrecht.

“She just travels so fast. Once she got into gear she was gone,” said Giesbrecht, who also won the 2013 Derby with Bettor In The Bank, who paid $37.80 to win. Bettor In The Bank was owned by Keith Clark, Verne Rae and Robert Jones.

If there’s a flaw to Custard Dolce, it’s that she’s often too good.

“She gets bored up front. If there’s no target, she eases up. She figures her work is done,” said Giesbrecht.

It is moves and races like this which make Custard Dolce the probable year-end Alberta Horse of the Year.

“I think she deserves it,” said Jackson Wittup, who owns Custard Dolce with Max Gibb, Derek Wilson and trainer Jamie Gray.

“She’s done just about everything she’s been asked to do. But races like this are hard on the nerves.”

Unlike Hands Off Harry, Custard Dolce was always a beautiful animal.

“The first time I saw her, I was in love,” said Gray. “She’s really good looking. She’s a tall, well proportioned filly -- long legged and her confirmation is really nice.”

“Once-in-a-lifetime horse,” added Wilson, who said he celebrated with his wife, Lori, and a large group of friends who came up from Calgary until the wee hours of the morning. “It’s just been unbelievable.”

(Curtis Stock / thehorses.com)