Kiera Seelster pulled off a 49-1 shocker in the $37,200 final of the Harvest Series for Ontario-sired three-year-old pacing fillies on Friday, Nov. 22 at Woodbine Mohawk Park.
A break in stride at the beginning of the race by outside post eight starter Resilience, the heavy favourite after dominating wins in both preliminary legs of the series, set the stage for the upset as Kiera Seelster fired to the front from post seven and lasted on the lead for driver Jonathan Drury and trainer Garry Merner.
With Resilience (Louis-Philippe Roy) out of contention, Kiera Seelster and Drury proceeded to set fractions of :26.4, :56.1 and 1:24.3 en route to the 1:53.1 victory while Rocks Shadow (Travis Cullen) chased 1-1/2 lengths behind in the pocket and Definingthe Moment (James MacDonald), also a winner in leg one, advanced first-up from mid-pack on the backstretch to show.
A $2 win bet on Kiera Seelster, who finished fourth in the opening rounds, returned a whopping $100.20.
"She's been racing good and getting better each week," commented Drury after the victory. "Garry's made a couple little changes on her each time and it seemed to help her. Last week, with the 11-hole, I thought she raced real well and I told Garry after the race that I thought we were second-best to Louis' horse [Resilience], and things kind of worked out in our favour tonight."
A one-time starter as a two-year-old, the Sportswriter-Keystone Tiffany filly has now won seven of her 20 sophomore starts and has earned $48,645 in purses for owner Larry Delellis of London, Ont.
Resilience was pulled up with broken equipment.
The series was for non-winners of $30,000 in 2024 as of Sept. 30.
To view Friday's harness racing results, click the following link: Friday Results - Woodbine Mohawk Park.
(Standardbred Canada)