Grand River Raceway’s Friday night cards are always something special thanks to their marketing director Kelly Spencer’s innovative twists that have turned them into Fun & Frivolity Friday night.

This week’s F&F evening is extra special as it will be celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Ontario Sires Stakes program. Visitors to the Elora, Ontario, track will enjoy birthday cupcakes, OSS themed trivia games, OSS betting contests, and OSS merchandise giveaways. Fans will also vie for a shot at a $40 betting voucher to be wagered on one of the four OSS Gold divisions of two-year-old pacing fillies featured that night.

Started thanks to the persistence of a group of Standardbred breeders in the province, the Ontario Sires Stakes has become the most successful of its kind across North America over the past four decades. That fact is obvious with just a cursory glance at the ownership of the fillies contesting the four $52,500 OSS Gold divisions that night.

There are a total of 30 horses entered. Their owners live in 19 different cities or towns across the province, in three other provinces (Quebec, Alberta and Nova Scotia), in eight different U.S. states and two of the fillies have an owner from Great Britain.

Tom Hill of Lancashire, England would win the award for the OSS owner from furthest away if there was a prize on Friday night. He has a pair of fillies racing in the Gold events starting with Lady Hill in the second division, race four where she will start from post four with Doug McNair in the race bike.

A daughter of the red hot stallion Sportswriter, Lady Hill finished third in her racing debut last week in an OSS Gold event at Mohawk. Bred by St. Lads Farm of Ruscom Station, Ontario, Lady Hill was purchased at last year’s Canadian Classic Sale for $23,000. She is the first foal from the $220,000 winner St Lads Hailaroo.

Hill’s other entrant is a homebred daughter of Art Colony named Delightful Hill. She’ll start from post seven with Billy Davis at the lines. In her first lifetime start, in an OSS Grassroots test at Mohawk last week, she was victorious in 1:55.4 which earned her the bump to the Gold division.

Hill is best known in harness racing for having owned Western Silk, a winner of more than $1.7 million in her career. She was sold to White Birch Farm at the conclusion of her racing career in 2012 for $330,000.

Both of Hill’s fillies are trained by Tony Alagna, the trainer of superstar pacer Captaintreacherous, a winner of $3 million to date in his career. Alagna, who hails from Steger, Illinois, has another starter in Friday night’s OSS splits. Pop Writer, also from the first crop of Sportswriter, has post seven in the first division, race one with McNair up. She captured her first OSS outing in a Gold event last week at Mohawk in 1:54.3.

Alagna co-owns the filly with John Carver of Indiana. Bred by Diamond Creek Farm, the filly is from a half-sister to top mares Yellow Diamond and Economy Terror, winners of $1.3 and $1.6 million respectively in their careers to date.

Grand River’s race card gets underway at 6:30 p.m. on Friday with the OSS fillies starring in races one, four, seven and 10.

(OSS)

To view entries for Friday's card of harness racing, click the following link: Friday Entries – Mohawk Racetrack.