Less than eight weeks ago, her owner was accepting an O’Brien Award trophy for her accomplishments in her two-year-old year. Suddenly, it’s March, and Canada’s champion freshman trotting filly is gearing up for the biggest year of her life

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On the distaff side, all eyes will be on the Angus Hall filly, Elusive Desire. Last year, her trainer Mike Keeling endured a lot of jokes about the winner’s circle being elusive, before Elusive Desire finally found her groove in late October in the Ontario Sires Stakes Gold elimination at Woodbine. She came back from the OSS “elim” to score by more than four lengths in the Gold final on November 7, and then blew her competition away in the November 15 OSS Super Final.

“She was tremendous in her last three starts, just a gorilla,” Keeling says.

His faith in Elusive Desire confirmed, Keeling, who is based in Cambridge, Ontario, is looking forward to her sophomore debut. “She wintered in North Carolina, and we brought her back at the end of February. She’s just started back jogging.

“She has grown a couple of inches in the last few months. She’s long in the body but not particularly tall in the legs. She did put on a lot of muscle. She’s always been a ‘good converter’ anyway. We never saw a rib on her last year.”

Keeling says Elusive Desire, a daughter of Angus Hall, owned by Bob Fasken and Charlie Armstrong, isn’t blazing the track in her training right now. That doesn’t concern him. “She has never been a great trainer. She tends not to pay attention and wanders all over the track. But when there’s money on the line, she puts her head down and gets
serious.”

Keeling is trying to get her ready for the first Ontario Sires Stakes elimination on May 10 at Mohawk.

“We’re going to focus on the Ontario program this year. She’s got a pretty busy dance card at Mohawk right through July, starting with the Elegantimage and the Casual Breeze.

“We have made her eligible to the Hambletonian Oaks, though. It’s always fun to think about the Oaks and it would be nice to go play on that day.”

(With files from WEG)