Smiles For Miles left his connections beaming in the winner's circle after a blowout victory in the $16,000 Preferred for male pacers at Grand River Raceway on Friday, Sept. 11.

Leaving from the inside post in the evening's featured finale, the 1-9 favourite Smiles For Miles and driver J Harris assumed command right from the get-go and had the field of nine strung out through a :26.1 opening quarter. The Dale Heard trainee continued to call the shots through a half in :54.1 and three-quarters in 1:22.3 with his challengers backing away as he turned for home and drew off by more than eight lengths in a career-best 1:50.4 mile, just one-fifth of a second off the track record for older pacing geldings. Ideal Perception (Samuel Fillion) followed back in second while Harborlite Ambrose (Austin Sorrie) shot up the inside from the backfield to nab third prize. The faltering first-up Crazy World (Brady Galliers) was fourth-placed-sixth for a lapped-on break at the finish.

Claimed for $15,000 at Georgian Downs in late July by Antonio Tangreda of Kettleby, Ont., Smiles For Miles was a close second in his two subsequent starts at Grand River before winning back-to-back races while banking $21,500 in those four starts. His latest victory on Friday night marked his first ever competing at the Preferred level. The five-year-old McWicked-Smileallthewayhome gelding now has 16 career wins from 67 starts and lifetime earnings totalling $135,290.

Grand River hosted a leg of the Prospect Series with five $10,000 divisions for Ontario-sired two-year-old pacers taking up half of Friday's card.

Hall of Fame trainer Carl Jamieson scored a stakes double with filly Pa Lila denying two pocket-pulling attempts from longshot Rum Runner to win her third Prospect division easily in 1:54.1 and colt Aces Wired holding on in a four-across finish to score a second Prospect victory in 1:55.2. Both winning Jamieson trainees established new lifetime marks with Brady Galliers aboard for the live catch drives.

The other colt division was won by Mark The Mechanic, who picked up his second Prospect victory while lowering his mark to 1:56.2 with Austin Sorrie driving for trainer Gerard Demers.

In the other filly divisions, the Susie Kerwood-trained Lady Roz (Bruce Richardson) and the Courtney Bishop stable's Chasing Jims Dream (Damian MacLellan) were both 1:54.4 first-time Prospect winners.

Grand River's 2026 harness racing season will wrap up next Wednesday, Sept. 16 with a 6:20 p.m. program.

To view Friday's harness racing results, click the following link: Friday Results - Grand River Raceway.

(Standardbred Canada)