Conventional wisdom, or perhaps just tradition, suggests that two-year-old fillies must be handled with extra care in their inaugural year at the races. Take it easy — not too many fast miles.

Story by Melissa Keith

In 2013, the freshman crop of Maritime pacing fillies ripped up those rules as they tied and tore through track records at Summerside Raceway, Charlottetown Driving Park, Northside Downs and Inverness Raceway. And the fastest of them all was Saulsbrook Alana.

That the Western Paradise daughter became a formidable stakes filly wasn’t a surprise to her trainer. According to Kevin MacLean, she looked the part from day one. He and owner Reg MacPherson saw Saulsbrook Alana at the 2012 NSPE yearling sale, and fell in love with her. “She was flawless to look at, so she just really stood out at the sale. Actually, she was out of the stall being shown more than she was in the stall!”

MacPherson would have to bid a sales-topping $13,100 to take home Saulsbrook Alana, but he was determined to bring the strapping filly back to Kinross Stables, the PEI training facility he had built three years earlier. “We went over there to get a filly, and when we came to her, we knew that was the filly,” he says. “She stood good. She’s a beautiful-looking animal.”

The purchase was the silver lining to a dark cloud hanging over MacPherson’s efforts to acquire a female yearling that year, according to MacLean. They had just been disappointed by the private sale of another filly that MacPherson had wanted to buy. “And he was [also] the underbidder at the Crapaud [PEI] sale on a couple of fillies, so it just worked out for the best”.

In addition to her strong physique, Saulsbrook Alana would prove to have the mentality of an athlete. MacLean reports that she gave no trouble to him or MacPherson during her early lessons. “It was almost like coming back with a three-year old. It seemed like she was already trained. Not a headache one day with her. She was just straight-ahead training.”

The half-mile training track at Kinross Stables provided the setting for most of Saulsbrook Alana’s conditioning, which her trainer says is a real advantage when readying a young horse. “All the work is right there,” explains MacLean. “We just took her in [to the actual racetrack] a couple of times prior to qualifying her, just to get her used to some of the things that might scare her or get her used to more of the surroundings. We have all the fast miles on her prior to going in there. She’s trained up and ready to qualify pretty well.” When spring 2014 arrives, MacLean expects to take her to Charlottetown for one or two qualifiers. To date, Saulsbrook Alana has had only one, back on June 15th, 2013 when she won handily from off the pace with a sharp final ¼ in :28.4.

Her first pari-mutuel races didn’t play out exactly as hoped, admits MacLean. “Actually, just after qualifying her, she wasn’t quite the same. After the qualifier she kind of got a little kink in her. [...] It kind of felt like she was on one line a little bit.” But he, MacPherson and the filly’s then-driver Kenny Arsenault knew that Saulsbrook Alana was better than her pair of third-place finishes in Summerside’s Callbeck Stake and Atlantic Sires Stake races would indicate. “He [Arsenault] was quite high on her. He knew she was something special. When Kenny qualified her, he said to Reg, ‘This is the best horse you’ve got in your barn, Reggie.’”

On July 23rd, with Marc Campbell in the sulky (Arsenault was driving a filly from his own stable), Saulsbrook Alana would finally find the winner’s circle as she broke her maiden at Truro Raceway with a decisive 2:00.1 win in an “A” division Atlantic Sires Stakes race. Paced over a muddy racing surface, the mile was a full five seconds quicker than the win posted by rival Lovineveryminute in the other division. Following a second-place finish in Northside Downs’ Nova Scotia Stake on August 1st, it was back to PEI for Saulsbrook Alana.

The Western Paradise-Atlanta Girl daughter recorded her second Atlantic Sires Stakes “A” division victory on August 15th at Charlottetown. It was somewhat overshadowed by the card’s other ATSS race for top-level freshman filly pacers, in which Lovineveryminute established a new Charlottetown track record for the two-year old distaff set (1:56.1). Saulsbrook Alana’s win over Dusty Lane Dora was more about tenacity than velocity. The victorious filly had left from the eight-hole and been parked for almost the entire mile. Her time of 1:57.4 was also a new lifetime mark.

Reg MacPherson’s phenom would shock the Summerside Raceway crowd and plenty of fans watching online ten days later. Leaving last in her five-horse Lady Slipper Stake Gold division, Saulsbrook Alana and Marc Campbell were the beneficiaries of an opening quarter speed duel . The three-wide troika of See Anna Win, Elm Grove Inarush and Lovineveryminute got the “Boom!” call from announcer Vance Cameron as they hit the quarter pole in 27.1. Coming first-over, Sausbrook Alana took charge and opened daylight between herself and the competition by the three-quarter mark in a record-quick 1:25.1. She and Campbell crossed the wire all alone by 10 ¾ lengths in 1:55.1. Afterward, Cameron contextualized the stunning performance: “To put it in perspective, that’s the kind of mile you would witness in the Ontario Sires Stakes Gold, the Pennsylvania Gold. Simply, simply awesome, amazing — you find the words, they’re out there.”

Saulsbrook Alana had not only taken two seconds off the old Summerside standard for two-year-old filly pacers — she had also set a seasonal record for her age and sex on a Canadian half-mile track, and become the fastest two-year-old pacer in Maritime racing history. Her record mile even bested the all-time Summerside Raceway record for three-year old pacing colts (1:55.4).

Putting her achievement into historic context, Saulsbrook Alana’s 1:55.1 at Summerside took place in the 50th anniversary year of the great Meadow Skipper’s 1:55.1 World Record at The Red Mile.

Critics openly wondered if unleashing Saulsbrook Alana’s freakish speed at age two would come back to haunt her connections. “It was just another mile to her,” laughs MacPherson. “She went back after that and won in 1:56 twice at Charlottetown and then she won again in 1:57. She was within herself doing that, you know.” By the end of the stakes season, the filly owned three Maritime track records for her respective division. The offspring a of stallion known for throwing early speed and a mare who paced to a 1:57.1f lifetime record at two, Saulsbrook Alana’s pedigree undoubtedly helped power up her impressive clockings.

As for taking it easy with a two-year-old filly, MacPherson says the rule didn’t apply to the cream of the 2013 crop. “They were head and shoulders above the colts, you know.” He thinks one reason Saulsbrook Alana didn’t receive regional Horse of the Year accolades in Atlantic Post Calls is because voters weren’t sure how to think of her achievements, in light of her age and gender. It’s understandable: MacPherson notes that even with advances in breeding, equipment and track design, “still, a 1:55.1 mile on a half-mile track is amazing for a two-year-old filly.”

Amazing, but too fast too soon? “No, I heard that criticism, but she’s such a good natural athlete that I knew it didn’t hurt her,” argues MacLean. “Marc didn’t hit her with the whip [in the record mile] — he just brushed the lines at her a little bit. As long as you’re not forcing them, they should come back.” On the early January afternoon MacLean was interviewed for this article, he reported that his charge was doing just that: coming back after two months of turnout at Kinross, newly-shod and just resuming jogging in preparation for her three-year-old campaign.

MacLean notes that for a standardbred to compete at high speed, conformation is more important than ever. No equipment will make up for deficiencies in the horse’s physical mechanics. Fortunately, his top trainee is flawless in that department: “[She wears] just the bare [minimum] gear — no knee boots. We just put a pair of light shin boots on her, just to have them there, but she doesn’t hit anywhere or interfere anywhere.” With a gait he describes as “nice and clean”, the filly returned from her record miles unscathed and ready for more. “I think all the good ones, that’s the way they have to go,” he offers. “If they’re going to go fast nowadays, they have to go clean.”

The top trainer by earnings at both of PEI’s pari-mutuel racetracks for 2013, MacLean credits Saulsbrook Alana with contributing the most to the honours—she won $61,473 of his stable’s $166,892 last year. He confirms that while there are no specific plans for her 2014 season, she is fully staked and MacPherson “will consider racing her in everything that’s available.” It could include The Maritimer’s two-heat challenge at Exhibition Park Raceway, but is unlikely to include facing colts, according to owner MacPherson.

Saulsbrook Alana will have her work cut out for her competing against her female peers in 2014. “It was just a real deep class,” MacLean says of last year’s two-year-old filly pacers. “Probably the top four fillies could have beat the top colts on any given day there, maybe up until the end.”

In her last start of 2013, Saulsbrook Alana had to settle for second when Elm Grove Inarush captured the Island Breeders final. It’s a defeat that Reg MacPherson is philosophical about. “Elm Grove Inarush, she was second to her a lot of trips, so although you hated to see her [Saulsbrook Alana] get beat, Elm Grove Inarush deserved one I guess.” He speaks highly of the drivers who handled the lines on his filly last year, saying he wouldn’t hesitate to use Gilles Barrieau, Brodie MacPhee or regular reinsman Marc Campbell with her this stakes season. “I’ll have to add another thing: Kevin MacLean is an exceptional trainer,” observes MacPherson. “He’s very thorough and he’s very patient.”

MacPherson is rightly proud of Kinross Stables. Not only did the retired trucking company owner develop the training facility on land where he once owned a house, but he’s filled his barn with well-bred horses and plays an active role in their careers. He works alongside MacLean, jogging horses every day, including Saulsbrook Alana. “She’s very comfortable when she first goes out on the track, but if you get a horse with her, boy, she’s full of herself!” laughs MacPherson. He calls her “nice to be around”, a “fairly routine” filly with the endearing habit of sticking her head out of the stall to be pet.

“We have a Western Paradise colt that we really like [Pictonian Edge], and we also have a filly by DM Dilinger [Invader M]. We like her!” says MacPherson, when asked about his current roster of two-year-olds. “I’m also part-owner on two colts that we bought at Harrisburg. We got a Sportswriter [Sports Vision] and an Art Colony [Brand New Deal].” The two Ontario-eligibles are currently training, along with their Maritime-bred colleagues, at Kinross Stables. MacPherson has tasted recent success in Ontario with the now-four-year old trotter Buddy Hally, a $275,000 earning, OSS Gold winning son of Angus Hall he co-owns with three other partners, including trainer Gregg McNair.

MacPherson was also fortunate enough to co-own a pair of stakes-caliber three-year-old colt pacers racing in the Maritimes last year, Pownal Bay Mustang and Forever Paradise. And while each was a winner in his own right, Saulsbrook Alana was clearly the dominant performer at Kinross Stables in 2013. Not just on the track, but with most equine company off-track too. “We only turned her out with Forever Paradise [a gelding], because if there’s another horse around and she decided not to like it, she could kick it pretty hard,” remarks Kevin MacLean. “She was a dominant horse and if she wanted to be left alone, she’d let them know. If they were out in the paddock alongside her, she’d let the heels go. Let them know not to mess with her.”

With a year-end tally of 9-2-2 over 13 races, including wins in the Atlantic Breeders Crown final, a PEI Colt Stake, three Atlantic Sires Stakes “A” divisions, two Lady Slipper Gold stakes, and the Maritime Breeders Stake elimination and final, it’s obvious that 2013 was a lucky year for Saulsbrook Alana. Because luck, as the philosopher Seneca once defined it, is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.