The last time trotting filly Angies Lucky Star appeared at Grand River Raceway she cruised to an effortless victory in the Ontario Sires Stakes Gold Series, and Arthur, Ont. residents Shannon and Trevor Henry are hoping she can reprise that effort Sunday evening in the last start of her sophomore season.
“Hopefully she throws us a good one, but if not we can’t be upset,” says Shannon. “She’s made $340,000 more than we paid for her.”
Angies Lucky Star will wrap up her three-year-old campaign in the $50,000 Gold Series Consolation on Sunday, lining up at Post 6 on the Grand River Raceway starting gate. A late addition to the Ontario Sires Stakes schedule, the Gold Series Consolation was open to the top nine regular season point earners who did not earn a cheque in the September 28 Super Finals.
Of her six Gold Series starts this season, the Super Final saw Angies Lucky Star deliver her worst result, making a pair of breaks and finishing ninth. While the daughter of Angus Hall also made mistakes in both of the August events, her other regular season Gold starts netted one win, one second and one third for Trevor Henry Stables Inc. and the Estate of Daniel J. McCann of Parkhill, Ont.
In total, Angies Lucky Star tallied four wins, three seconds, three thirds and $229,858 in earnings in her 13 sophomore outings. She posted a 1:53.1 personal best winning her Elegantimage Stakes elimination at Mohawk Racetrack in early June and finished just a head behind the division’s superstar, Bee A Magician, in the June 15 final.
“Even to be classified in with Bee A Magician, we’ll take that,” says Henry. “She just loves to race; she puts her heart into it. She just tries so hard that sometimes she overdid it trying to keep up with that other mare.”
Richard Moreau trained Angies Lucky Star through the bulk of her three-year-old season and Sylvain Filion handled most of the driving, but Trevor Henry will be back in the bike for Sunday’s season finale. Grand River Raceway’s leading driver piloted the filly in her July 3 win over the Elora oval and will be looking to repeat that effort in the evening’s third race.
“Trevor’s driving her, he knows her and she knows him,” says Henry. “I think she’ll be all right going into this.”
Trevor Henry will also be in the race bike behind Eat Pray Trot in the three-year-old trotting colt Consolation. The son of Ken Warkentin will benefit from Post 2 in the eleventh race and Henry is hopeful he can pick up a piece of the $50,000 purse.
“I actually didn’t expect him to get in,” notes Henry, who trains the colt and sent him out just twice in Gold Series action this summer. “He can’t win it, we know that, but if he gets a good piece of it we’ll be happy with him.”
Eat Pray Trot spent most of his summer competing at the Grassroots level, but skipped both of the Grassroots events at Mohawk Racetrack in favour of the Gold events at half-mile racetracks. In the Gold Series season opener at The Raceway at the Western Fair District he finished third and in his August 23 test at Grand River he finished fourth.
“He’s such a tiny, tiny little colt. He can’t trot the big track,” Henry explains.
“But he just seems to go along where ever you put him,” she continues. “We had the mare, too, we raced her, and she was gutsy, too.”
Owned by Donna Weaver and Robert Rooney’s 1035840 Ontario Inc. of Arthur, Eat Pray Trot has three seconds and two thirds to his credit through 13 sophomore starts for earnings of $36,948.
In addition to the sophomore trotting colts and fillies, Grand River Raceway will also roll out the welcome mat for the other six Gold Series divisions on Sunday. The $50,000 Gold Series Consolations will go postward as Races 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 and 11, with the program getting underway at 6:00 p.m.
The on-track excitement will be complimented by a $200 free-to-play Ontario Sires Stakes Survivor Handicapping Contest and $100 Cheerleading Squads after each OSS race for a total of $1,000 in cash prizes. Both contests require the on-track purchase of an October 13 Grand River Raceway program.
To view the harness racing entries for Sunday at Grand River, click the following link: Sunday Entries – Grand River Raceway.
(OSS)