When Eduardo Martinez entered the free fantasy pool contest that thestable.ca was running this past summer with his friends on a whim, he never thought he would be paying down his student loan with the winnings in November.

In April of this year, Amy and Anthony MacDonald approached The Meadowlands, Woodbine Entertainment Group, Diamond Creek Farm, and Blue Chip Farm about funding a fantasy pool revolving solely around their two-year-olds in the hopes of trying to spur interest from the general public. All four happily agreed.

"We were already in business with Tom Grossman of Blue Chip Farms and Jeff [Gural] and there was really no hesitation from Woodbine either," said Anthony MacDonald. "We had only met Adam Bowden of Diamond Creek Farm once and was a bit surprised how quickly he was on board, considering he didn't have any vested interest in thestable.ca other than a shares desire to grow the industry any way possible.

"After we started to advertise the contest, people wondered why we wouldn't tie it to The Stable itself, in the form of a credit rather than just a 'no strings attached' cheque?" MacDonald explained. "Our site runs gimmick-free, and that is exactly how we wanted the contest to run. I didn't want someone to win a rebate or a credit. We advertise our site and stable as 'what you see is what you get' and that's what we delivered."

People responded entering the free contest in droves.

There were ups and downs all summer with many leader changes, but ultimately Dancer Hall sealed the deal for Martinez as he was the fourth horse all the other leaders didn't pick.

Dancer Hall himself is headed to the Valley Victory next week and is unbeaten in his last three races. To say he flew under the radar at the beginning of the stake season would be an understatement.

Overall, thestable.ca contest was a huge success, but for Martinez it was a real hand up.

Reaching a younger age group is vital for horse racing to continue and the demographic for the fantasy pool painted a clear picture.

"We are by no means surprised about how effective the pool was," said MacDonald.

The top two winners were both under 30 years old in Martinez and Arie Moldavin, and the scope of the contest reached all over the world.

Shae Sumner of London, Ont. and Dan Plesac ended up tied for third; the very same Dan Plesac who works for Major League Baseball and played for the Toronto Blue Jays.

Some might say the better half of the MacDonald duo, Amy MacDonald had this to say: "One of our major motives for running this contest was obviously to attract potential clients to horse racing, and we signed up a large amount of eager investors.

"Thestable.ca can't thank the Meadowlands, WEG, Blue Chip, and Diamond Creek enough for helping us with this contest. Everything we do here is geared to build a better future for our industry even if that's one percent at a time.

"The people helping out understand how difficult it will be, but like Anthony and I, they are rolling their sleeves up for the work ahead."

Thestable.ca will be heading to Harrisburg next week and is looking forward to closing out the sale season with a bang.

Over 114 people are current owners with the MacDonalds at The Stable and another 120 are pondering investment.

With almost 35 yearlings already gathered up, thestable.ca is poised to be one of the largest stables of two-year-olds in Canada heading into the 2017 season.

(With files from The Stable)