With the 2025 O'Brien Awards rapidly approaching, Trot Insider continues to shine the spotlight on this year's finalists for Canadian harness racing's top honours.
The finalists in the Two-Year-Old Trotting Filly division are Bingo Night, Flowing Tribute and Storybook Love.
Bingo Night turned heads almost immediately. In her second career start, the daughter of Green Manalishi S-Cant Stop Tommi was parked the mile in the first Ontario Sires Stakes (OSS) Gold leg at Woodbine Mohawk Park and won going away by 2-3/4 lengths in 1:54.4. That effort began a strong OSS campaign in which she hit the board in every preliminary leg, winning two, and finished it off with a victory in the Super Final in 1:53.4, which matched the divisional OSS record she tied once earlier in the season.
The successful rookie campaign was a source of pride for trainer/co-owner Dustin Jones. Driven by his son, Tyler, Bingo Night also finished second in the Grade 1 Peaceful Way Final and earned a berth into the Breeders Crown Final after a third-place finish in her elimination.
“It’s really rewarding. We bred her mother Cant Stop Tommi as well as Bingo Night,” Jones said. “I’m also very proud of the job Tyler did with her, giving her two good qualifiers and a good first start to set her up for the year. I’m also proud of the job Matt Fuller and the rest of the staff did with her.”
Bingo Night was co-bred by Dustin Jones Stables Inc. of Hamilton, Ont. and Hebert Horses Inc. of Montreal, Que. They are partners in ownership with Sjoblom Racing Inc. of Delray Beach, Fla. Initial high hopes in the filly were tempered as the training process began, but she improved with time.
“'Bingo' was raised at Jeff Ruch’s Pinestone Farm, and he told us that she was all trot in the field, so expectations were high on her,” Jones said. “But when we broke her, I didn’t think she had much of a round gait in front, but the faster she went, the better her gait got.
“Also, I think she has bitten everyone in the stable plus my partners. She doesn’t really go to bite you, but if you are holding her and not paying attention, she will get you. It’s mostly a little pinch, but she wants you to know she is there.”
Such behaviour is perhaps more tolerable when the horse in question earns $424,469 in her debut season. Bingo Night finished the year with a 5-3-3 record from 12 starts, missing the board only once.
Flowing Tribute was the only horse to collect more divisional OSS points than Bingo Night as she won four of five preliminary Gold legs for trainer Paul Reid and driver Bob McClure. One of two victories over that co-finalist was a 1:55.2 performance in round four at Grand River Raceway, which not only broke the two-year-old filly trot track record, but made her the fastest freshman trotter over that surface since it was reconfigured to a five-eighths before the 2024 season.
“She was just naturally gifted,” McClure said. “She was mature beyond other two-year-olds, and she thrived at Grand River mostly because she was so mature and professional.”
Flowing Tribute won five of her seven starts for owners Pat Dillon of Port Hope, Ont., Laurie Rooney of DeLeon Springs, Fla., Brian Kleinberg of Madison, N.J., and Richard Beinhauer of Venetia, Pa. The Green Manalishi S-Watch The Show filly, a $30,000 purchase from the London Classic Yearling Sale, recorded a 1:54.4 clocking in her debut, which remains her career mark. She earned $213,600 in her two-year-old year.
Fittingly, Storybook Love had a fairy-tale ending to her rookie year as she won the Breeders Crown on home soil at Mohawk, giving driver Todd Ratchford and trainer Matt Bax their first Crown victories. The tale started with the re-joining of forces of two of Ontario’s most prominent owners, as Brad Grant and Al Libfeld purchased the filly for $283,784 at the Lexington Selected Yearling Sale.
“At the sale, as Storybook Love was getting close to coming into the ring, I saw John and Matt Bax wander into the pavilion,” said Grant of Milton, Ont., who shares ownership of the Chapter Seven-Stirling Debutant filly with Libfeld of Pickering, Ont. “I said to Bridgette (Jablonsky), who picked the filly out for me, that we had competition. After chatting with John, who I had horses with, I reached out to Al, who I had been partners with before, and in like five minutes we were partners again. And as they say, 'the rest is history.’”
Storybook Love won her first start at Mohawk and had a hit-and-miss New York Sire Stakes campaign that ended with a break in the final. But the filly came into her own in the second half of the season, never missing the exactor in her final six starts. She posted place finishes in the Champlain Stakes and a Two-Year-Old Open at Mohawk, then won her elimination of the Big Apple over the Vernon Downs oval and finished second in the final. After winning her Breeders Crown elimination, she capped off the year by kicking home in :27.4 to capture the final in 1:52.2, the fastest time by a two-year-old trotting filly in Canada for 2025.
“Storybook Love’s highlight is obviously winning her elimination and the final of the Breeders Crown,” said Grant. “But as much as it was winning the Breeders Crown, it was being part of Matt and Todd’s first Breeders Crown wins in their first attempts. And who better to share it with than my partner Al Libfeld and Hall of Famer John Bax?”
Ratchford drove the filly in nine starts, with Chris Christoforou taking the lines for two September outings and Bax piloting her to a debut win. Storybook Love won four times in 12 starts and earned $687,226.
“I believe she deserves to be a finalist,” Grant said. “She showed us late in the year that she was the filly we all believed she was as she continued to improve and capped it off with her Breeders Crown win.”
This year marks the 37th edition of the O’Brien Awards, named in honour of the late Joe O’Brien, an outstanding horseman and Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame inductee. The winners will be announced at the O’Brien Awards Gala on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026 at the J-AAR Expo Centre at Western Fair District in London, Ont.
(Standardbred Canada; photos courtesy of New Image Media and Tiffany Chantel Photography)