Seven days out from this year's event, Trot Insider continues to showcase this year's O'Brien Awards finalists with the spotlight here on the Three-Year-Old Pacing Colt division.

Nominated for a second consecutive year, Crack Shot joins the trio of finalists as a now two-time Ontario Sires Stakes Gold Super Final Champion. Trained by Gregg McNair, the son of Bettors Delight-Beautyonthebeach won six of 16 in 2025, headlined by the $300,000 Super Final on Oct. 11 which he won in a career best 1:48.2 romp by 5-1/2 lengths. 

"Winning the Super Final was a great highlight; that's back to back wins as the Gold winner," said Frank Brundle, who co-owns Crack Shot with Gregg McNair, Dale Hunter and George Kerr.

Doug McNair was the regular pilot aboard Crack Shot, driving the colt in all but one of his pari-mutuel starts. In addition to the Super Final win, the pint-sized colt with a big motor also captured victories in the SBOA final and Simcoe Stakes en route to racking up $505,267 during his sophomore campaign while hitting the board in 11 of 16, pushing his career earnings to just shy of $750,000.

"He's just a fun horse to be around," Brundle continued. "He's small and mighty like (co-owner) Dale Hunter. Whenever Crack Shot shows up to the races, he's all business."

Runner-up to Crack Shot in the OSS Gold Super Final was fellow O'Brien finalist, Fifth And Five. The Carl Jamieson-trained son of Bettors Delight-Filou Fly Fast got hot during the summer, reeling off six straight victories between June 21 and Aug. 30, including three legs of OSS Grassroots, and putting an exclamation point on the streak with an OSS Gold win at Mohawk.

"He's kind of a typical Bettors Delight; he's a nice horse." Carl Jamieson explained, "He tries his heart out every time he races and he's always been a sound horse."

Taking a mark of 1:49.2 at Mohawk during that six race win against Grassroots competition on July 15, Fifth And Five was a model of consistency throughout the year missing only two cheques the entirety of his season. The pacer banked the majority of his $251,754 earned in 2025 for owners Jamieson, 1140545 Ontario Ltd. and Trevor Edwards before being sold to Pollack Racing LLC in November. 

"He wasn't a bad investment," Jamieson continued. "He was a $32,000 investment when we bought him as a yearling, so he worked out pretty good."

Prince Hal Hanover rounds out the trio of nominees after he closed out a seven-figure campaign in 2025. Trained by Dr. Ian Moore, the Captaintreacherous-Percy Bluechip colt was victorious in eight of 21 on the year, racking up major stakes victories in the Adios at The Meadows, Carl Milstein Memorial at Northfield Park and Bluegrass in a career best 1:47.2 at The Red Mile on Sept. 27.

"Hal has flown under the radar for the last couple of years," Dr. Ian Moore explained. "He has been a very nice horse for us and especially so as a three-year-old, competing regularly with and beating some of the top three-year-olds on the continent."

Owned by the Prince Hal Hanover Stable, which consists of Moore and five other partners, Prince Hal Hanover accrued $1,142,023 in 2025 and pushed him beyond the $1.5 million mark lifetime. Prince Hal Hanover is from a family that Moore knows well, having trained his Breeders Crown and O'Brien Award winning dam, Percy Bluechip, for much of her two- and three-year-old campaigns. 

"Prince Hal Hanover was special in many ways," Moore continued. "His mother was a two-year-old Canadian champion that we raced a few years ago. She won many top races for us, and now her son has done the same. And while most of his racing has been in the U.S., he spent almost his entire year in Canada. Six of us are partners and and we all decided after two or three stallion offers and a couple of purchase offers, that this is the kind of a horse that we all look for in babies so we decided to continue on and race him as a four-year-old.  I know he will give his best and hopefully we have a great year."

This year marks the 37th edition of the O’Brien Awards, named in honour of the late Joe O’Brien, an outstanding horseman and Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame inductee. The winners will be announced at the O’Brien Awards Gala on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026 at the J-AAR Expo Centre at Western Fair District in London, Ont.

(Standardbred Canada; photos courtesy New Image Media and Amanda Stephens)