On Monday night at Mohawk Racetrack, after stepping to a 1:51.3 victory with Pepsi North America Cup-eligible Fast Pay, driver Paul MacDonell stated the obvious to trainer Dave Menary. "Yeah, you've got more than a 'grassrooter' here," said the O'Brien Award winner

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Fast Pay, the Ontario Sires Stakes Grassroots Two-Year-Old Pacing Colt champion from 2008, is beginning to show the rest of industry what his owners have been high on.

"The horse has just got a wicked burst of speed," Menary told Trot Insider. "He's such a good stalker -- so good from off the pace. If we have a bit of luck and get him the right trips this year, he can come flying late and hopefully pick up quite a good chunk of purses in the process."

Menary told Trot Insider that the colt never really got to show his stuff last year, as the $38,000 Forest City Yearling Sale purchase fought allergies and sickness throughout the campaign. The colt got over many of those issues by the end of the season, where he shined brightly in the $60,000 OSS Grassroots final. After laying off the early tempo, Fast Pay and Aaron Byron came home with a wallop -- taking an overland trip to draw off by more than eight lengths, stopping the clock in a life's best 1:54.2. As a comparison, the Three-Year-Old Pacing Colt final, captured by Legal Litigator, went in 1:53.4. "With the way he raced that night, he could've won the three-year-old division," Menary told Trot Insider.

Regardless of the issues the colt faced throughout his inaugural campaign, Fast Pay would end off his freshman season with a record of 2-3-1 from 10 starts, good for $58,916 in purses.

Besides the Grassroots final, Menary points out two other freshman races as indicators that Fast Pay is the real deal. In a late September mile over Dresden, Fast Pay made a break while on the outside past the three-quarters pole. The colt got settled and rebounded with authority, still sprinting home with a :27.4 final quarter for an open-length victory. The other mile was his only on a big track last year, which came over Mohawk in late August after being off three weeks. After a Post 9 start and spotting the field double-digit lengths, Fast Pay made up ground on the outside and just finished a half-length back in second, pacing in 1:55.4.

Menary told Trot Insider that a new ownership group came in after the Grassroots final. With Fast Pay being the best horse that the new owners have been in on, everyone associated with the colt are very excited with the prospects of his three-year-old campaign.

"He's not a really big colt, but he has that heart and races like a big colt," said Menary, who also told Trot Insider that Fast Pay is being pointed to the eliminations for Georgian Downs' $500,000 (estimated) Upper Canada Cup. The elims will be contested May 16 and the final May 23.

"I wanted to stretch him out a bit [in his Monday victory at Mohawk]," Menary told Trot Insider. "I wanted to show everyone how good a colt he is and hope that he gets some respect heading into the Upper Canada Cup."

The colt has also been pegged as a 70-1 shot in Trot Magazine's 2009 Pepsi North America Cup Spring Book.