O’Brien Award winner San Pail made third start of the season on Monday evening in Woodbine Racetrack’s $42,000 Open Trot
, and the millionaire had no problems firing on all cylinders for partners Rod Hughes and Glenn Van Camp.
The six-year-old son of San Pellegrino-Village Beauty wasted no time in establishing the early lead for Randy Waples, who played a third race game of “catch me if you can” with the Rod Hughes trainee.
San Pail parked to the opening quarter in :27.2 before clearing to the top and posting middle splits of :57.1 and 1:27. He uncorked a :27.3 final frame en route to the 1:54.3 triumph over last week’s Open Trot winner, Define The World. Merited Victory rounded out the top three.
“He felt unbelievable,” said driver Randy Waples. “He was really good last week; we just wanted to get a clean line into him. I was a little shocked that they got away from me, because I knew the fractions were hot and I thought that I could still beat them. Paul [MacDonell driving Define The World] drove a good race and got away from me, and it was kind of my fault last week that he didn’t win or at least get alongside the winner. But he raced really well, and then tonight he was really full of himself. He knows he’s San Pail right now.”
As good as San Pail was in Monday’s assignment, Waples knows there will be a long list of top trotters to tackle throughout the remainder of the season.
“There’s great trotters out there, were only seeing Lucky Jim, Enough and Define The World and horses like that but they’re all over the place. They can come from Chicago or Europe, there’s always all kinds of them out there but then something shows up that can sit in the centre of the track and beat you,” added Waples. “I’m just going to keep my fingers crossed because I know the horse has come back better this year than last year, and I just think he’s a really great horse. If things go our way and we draw good and if he’s healthy and sound he’ll give a good account of himself no matter who he’s in with.”
The homebred, who was sent off as the 3/5 favourite in Monday's assignment, is a 24-time winner who has stashed away earnings in excess of $1.1 million to date.
To view Monday’s results, click here.