A pair of Ontario-sired four-year-olds will look for a big early season series victory Saturday night in the Ontario Boys and Girls finals at Woodbine Racetrack.
The $45,000 Ontario Boys final for four-year-old pacers and the $44,600 Ontario Girls final for four-year-old pacing mares highlight Saturday’s 11-race card.
The Ontario Boys series has been dominated through the first two legs by Nirvana Seelster. The Bill Budd trainee will start from post two in Saturday’s ten-horse final with Phil Hudon in the bike.
Nirvana Seelster will be looking to complete the series sweep, as he won the lone first leg division by 2 ¾ lengths and scored another victory last week in a second leg division by an impressive 6 ¼ lengths.
A son of Camluck, Nirvana Seelster banked over $100,000 last season and has won two of six starts year for $25,160 in earnings.
Ideal Jet, the only other horse to win a division leg, has drawn post position nine. The Craig Barss trainee scored a front-end victory last week and will once again be driven by Randy Waples.
One of the most consistent horses in the field, Ramblingamblinman, will look to get over the hump and get the job done from post eight.
Trained and driven by Rick Zeron, Ramblingamblinman finished third in the opening leg and second in last week’s leg to Nirvana Seelster. Over his last nine starts, Ramblingamblinman has finished in the money eight times.
The Ontario Boys final is scheduled as race seven and will cap off the $50,000 early Pick-4.
As for the ladies, only one division was necessary in both the first and second legs of the series. Artistic Fusion got the job done in round one, while Bet Ya scored the victory in round two.
Both mares are back for the ten-horse final, but both were on opposite ends of the post position draw.
Artistic Fusion and driver Sylvain Filion will start from post one, while Bet Ya and Jack Moiseyev drew the dreaded ten-hole.
A daughter of Artistic Fella, Artistic Fusion has been on fire over the last couple months in series action. The Joe Agostino trainee finished second in the Niagara series and recently captured the Blizzard series on January 23.
Last week, Artistic Fusion had her four-race win streak snapped when she lost by a nose to Bet Ya. She enters Saturday’s final with four wins from five starts in 2015 and earnings just under $50,000.
A daughter of Jeremes Jet, Bet Ya is making her third start after a couple months off and came up big with the victory in her second start of the year last week.
Trained and driven by Moiseyev, Bet Ya had a very productive 2014 with six wins from 23 starts, 15 top-three finishes and earnings just over $97,000.
The Ontario Girls final will take place as race three Saturday night.
In order to be eligible to both series, the Ontario sired four-year-olds had to be non-winners of $100,000 or $50,000 as of October 31, 2014.
Post time Saturday night is 7:25 p.m. To view Saturday's harness racing entries, click on the following link: Saturday Entries - Woodbine Racetrack.
(WEG)