For veteran trainer Marcel Barrieau, Jitterbug’s victory this week in the $105,000 Ontario Sires Stakes Gold Series final for three-year-old trotters at Mohawk Racetrack brought both relief and elation.

It had been seven years since a horse from his stable last captured a six-figure purse, going back to Amazing Dealer in the $200,000 Coupe des Eleveurs final for three-year-old trotting fillies at now-defunct Hippodrome de Montreal in 2007.

“That felt real good,” said the New Brunswick native, who for the second consecutive summer has moved his 10-horse stable from his base in Les Cedres, Quebec to Ontario’s Shamrock Training Centre.

Like Amazing Dealer, Jitterbug is co-owned by Barrieau’s longtime friend and supporter Conrad Leber, who watched the race on TV from his home in Montreal. “He called and was very excited. He said ‘we’ll have to go shopping again this fall’,” Barrieau said.

Jitterbug, a son of Kadabra, was a $39,000 yearling. He showed ability at two, notably in last summer’s $150,000 mid-season OSS final at Mohawk, where he finished a good third to Muscle Matters.

“I’ve always been high on this colt, but he was big and interfered with himself. This year, he seems to have grown out of that,” said Barrieau, 67.

The victory, with Sylvain Filion in the sulky, was the third in eight career starts for Jitterbug and bumped his earnings to more than $104,000 for Barrieau, Leber and another of Barrieau’s longtime owners, Gestion Mastel Inc. of Longueuil, Quebec.

(Trot Insider exclusive by Paul Delean)