“He’s just a damn nice looking horse, he really is.”

Flamboro Downs fans will be treated to the eagerly anticipated start of the two-year-old Ontario Sires Stakes campaign this Wednesday, June 27 as the Dundas oval plays host to a trio of freshman trotting colt Gold eliminations.

Nineteen colts will vie for one of nine spots on the starting gate in next week’s Gold Final, and trainer John Kopas is hoping his good-looking Cool Victory can be among the top three finishers in his elimination. The Milton resident has qualified the Kadabra colt twice, the first a runner-up effort over a sloppy Mohawk Racetrack oval on June 9 and the second a 2:00.2 win at Mohawk on June 14.

“I liked him the first day I saw him out at the farm,” says Kopas. “We went over maybe a month before the sale there at Flamboro, and like I said, I liked him right from day one. I was pleasantly surprised that we managed to get him as cheaply as we did. I thought going into the sale he’d probably be an $80,000 to $90,000 yearling, I really did.”

Kopas and his partners LLK Stable of Mississauga, Kocomo Stables of Moffat, Janet Wagner of Mississauga and Gary Grieve of Union offered up $25,000 for Cool Victory at last fall’s Canadian Yearling Sale and the trainer says the trotter has barely put a foot wrong since.

In preparation for Wednesday’s test, which will see Cool Victory depart the gate from Post 1 in the seventh race, Kopas took the colt for a test run over the Flamboro Downs half-mile on Friday morning.

“I took him over there [Friday] and trained him and he trained very, very well. He had no trouble whatsoever with the turns,” notes the horseman. “I didn’t really think he would, but you know, it never hurts to go over.”

Regular reinsman Jack Moiseyev of Moffat will steer Cool Victory on Wednesday, and the colt’s connections are hoping the duo can replicate the success they enjoyed with last season’s freshman trotting colt star The Game Plan. Another son of Kadabra, The Game Plan captured three Gold eliminations, two Gold Finals and the final of the William Wellwood Memorial Trot in a season that saw him earn almost $500,000 and an O'Brien Award.

Like his stablemate, so long as Cool Victory’s season progresses according to plan, the colt will have an opportunity to compete against both his Ontario and American-sired peers.

“We kept him paid into everything that he was eligible to, because he acted like a pretty chancy individual right from day one,” says Kopas.

The trainer adds that Cool Victory has grown into a long-legged youngster, but that he should be able to handle any size of racetrack due to his solid mechanics and the fact that his growth has been steady rather than in uneven spurts.

“He’s grown considerably. He would be, I suppose, close to 16 hands now, but he grew proportionately, never got out of kilter,” explains the horseman. “He’s just a damn nice looking horse, he really is.”

Like Cool Victory, the other 18 colts will be aiming for a top three finish in their $40,000 Gold elimination in order to advance through to next week’s $130,000 Gold Final. The colts will battle over the Flamboro Downs oval in Races 5, 7, and 9, with post time for the Wednesday, June 27 program slated for 1 p.m.

To view Wednesday's harness racing entries, click on the following link: Wednesday Entries - Flamboro Downs.

(With files from OSS)