Last year, Chris Christoforou schooled the young trotting colt Ole Jack Magic for trainer Jerry Duford and owner/breeder Joanne Wray and when he stepped off the bike he told the pair, “I think you guys have another good one.”

Longtime partners Wray and Duford of Campbellville, Ontario, have campaigned several good trotters over the years and were encouraged by Christoforou’s assessment of their young homebred by Kadabra, which proved accurate in his first few starts. Ole Jack Magic finished second in two Ontario Sires Stakes Grassroots events in his first two lifetime starts and was fourth in a Gold division but then he trailed off a bit.

“He’s a big colt, he wasn’t lame, just a bit colt sore,” explained Wray. “We realized the best thing for him was to shut him down and wait for this year.”

That’s proven to be a wise decision, as to date this year in his three-year-old campaign Ole Jack Magic has two wins and a second from four starts. His latest effort was an open-length victory in 1:56 in an OSS Grassroots event at Mohawk Racetrack on June 9. That performance earned him the right to try the Gold division where he’ll start Tuesday at Mohawk in the first of two $105,000 divisions.

Ole Jack Magic will start from Post 2 in Race 5 with Christoforou in the bike. The second division will head postward for Race 9.

“We’re just testing him to see if he’s Gold calibre. He keeps improving and we’re delighted with his progress so far. We’re hopeful he’ll be competitive, there are a lot of nice colts in this division,” noted Wray.

“The only thing that concerns me is they’re calling for rain tomorrow so it could be sloppy, but he’s an honest horse, very sensible, the kind you like to be around, so he should be okay. The only break on his card was in a qualifier earlier this year. It was a really windy day and Chris said a piece of paper flew in the horse’s face and he shied away from it and broke. In his next qualifier he was just fine.”

Ole Jack Magic is the second foal of the Angus Hall mare Whitesand Electra. Wray purchased the filly as a weanling (just a few months old) at the Harrisburg sale in November of 2004.

“We had a filly at home and needed another to turn out with her for the winter. That was the year of the Armstrong Bros. dispersal, but the ones they had were out of our price range. We hung around and saw this little Angus Hall filly from Whitesand Valley Stables (of Schomberg, Ont.).

“She was a perfect little thing, She was quite small, but was a little trooper at the sale, good as gold, and we ended up getting her for $14,000. She was the type you’d never know she was around. You’d feed her, turn her out, jog her, train her, race her, no drama whatsoever.

“Our homebred didn’t turn out at all, but Whitesand Electra went on to win just over $100,000, which was more than we ever thought. In fact at one time she held the track record at Barrie which was a real thrill for us.”

After she retired Whitesand Electra was bred to Ontario’s leading trotting sire, Kadabra. “In part that was to get some size because she was small, but also because he’s the best trotting sire on the planet in my opinion,” explained Joanne.

At the time, Duford and Wray didn’t have any other broodmares, so they decided to sell the mare in foal. “I didn’t want her to be lonely at the farm all by herself, so thought it would be best for her to go somewhere with other mares. We took her to Harrisburg to sell and I don’t think we got one bid on her. I was talking to Joanne Morrison at the sale and asked her if they had room for her at their farm (in Beeton, Ont.). They did and that has worked out.

“We now have another mare, a Cams Card Shark sister to Camille and Chancey Lady (winners of over $1 million and $2 million, respectively). We keep the two mares at home, I love to have the foals around, and then they go to Morrisons to foal and be re-bred. It’s worked out really well.”

When Ole Jack Magic was born on January 31 at the Morrison farm, it was Joanne Morrison who christened him ‘Jack’ after Jack Frost, given how cold the night was. “I just played around with that and came up with Ole Jack Magic,” said Wray.

Ole Jack Magic’s performance Tuesday night at Mohawk will determine whether he’ll remain in the Gold division or drop back down to the Grassroots. Beyond the Ontario Sires Stakes, he’s also eligible to the Simcoe, Canadian Breeders and Canadian Trotting Classic. The latter is an open event with a $685,000 final.

“We kept him eligible to the Trotting Classic, but he’ll have to step up a lot for that,” mused Wray, who owns and operates Joanne’s Staking Service. “The incentive to put him in there is because it’s close (at Mohawk) so you don’t have to ship.”

Regardless of what race it is, Wray gets the same feeling every time one of her horses race. “It’s still so exciting for me when they go behind the gate, the feeling makes you know you’re alive. Despite how long we’ve been in the sport we’re still fans, we still thoroughly enjoy it.”

She’ll have that feeling tomorrow night at Mohawk.

To view the harness racing entries for Tuesday at Mohawk, click the following link: Tuesday Entries – Mohawk Racetrack.

(OSS)