A three-horse qualifier wouldn't typically get top billing as the main event of a card, but it does when one of those horses is an O'Brien Award-winning millionaire and another is a Somebeachsomewhere Horse of the Year.
The four-dash session of qualifiers on Friday, Nov. 8 at Woodbine Mohawk featured returning older male speedster Stone Carver and a pair of powerful pacing females — Prohibition Legal and Sylvia Hanover. Points-wise, each of those distaffers are in the mix for the TVG/FanDuel Mare Pace later this month at The Meadowlands, and they'll have to be at their best to knock off the top contender for that event: the top-ranked horse in harness racing, Twin B Joe Fresh.
Making his first appearance since August, Stone Carver received marching orders from driver Jody Jamieson and shouldered the load through the early part of the mile. The tempo was moderate, with fractions of :29.3, :59.2 and 1:29.1 posted through the first three panels with Prohibition Legal (James MacDonald) and Sylvia Hanover (Bob McClure) following behind. At the head of the lane, all the horse remained in single file order but then MacDonald right-lined Prohibition Legal late to pick off Stone Carver by a half length in 1:57.2. Sylvia Hanover closed with the fastest final quarter, coming home in :27.4 into a headwind, and showed strong strides after the wire.
Five-year-old Prohibition Legal (Big Jim - Catch A Wish) is trained by Nick Gallucci for owner/breeder Millar Farms of Stouffville, Ont. The 12-time winner sports $1.09 million in earnings.
The full video stream from Friday is available below.
For results from the qualifying session, click the following link: Friday Results - Woodbine Mohawk Park (Qualifiers).
(Standardbred Canada)