Open Trotter Set For A Road Trip
K D Amazin Spirit will be seeking his ninth win on the year from 13 attempts in Friday night’s Open Trot, and owner/breeder/trainer Keith Willey reports he will soon be taking his act on the road.
The seven-year-old son of Thadrow was born on Willey’s farm, some 32 miles from Cal Expo, and has spent his entire life somewhere between those two points. That is all going to change when the meet ends at the end of the month, as a 32-hour truck ride is in his future.
“He’s going to Running Aces in Minnesota with Nathalie Tremblay,” Willey informed. “This will be the first time he’s ever done any travelling and the first time he’ll be racing over a five-eighths track. It should be interesting.”
K D Amazin Spirit is certainly at the top of his game right now. He is coming off arguably the most impressive mile of his career, as he blitzed an Open II group on April 27 in an eye-catching 1:54.2 performance with Scott Cisco at the controls. The tour not only shaved two and one-fifth seconds off his lifetime mark, but was only two ticks off Bolivar’s track record.
“He’s always been versatile as far as racing style goes, and he’s just gotten better with age,” his mentor noted. “That was a pretty impressive mile the other night and he didn’t get tired until the very end, when he started flashing his tail. I think he was looking for more.”
Willey related that he actually didn’t think K D Amazin Spirit was going to be racing that weekend and had brought him home to the farm for some "R and R." When an Open II event ended up going, it turned out to just be a two-day homecoming and he went that blistering mile to make 40-cents on the dollar look like a gift.
K D Amazin Spirit has been assigned the outside post and gets top billing in Friday evening’s featured $6,000 Open Trot at Cal Expo.
(Cal Expo)