When it comes to winning, three-year-old trotter Market Share is at 100 per cent
.
Market Share was five-for-five last year for trainer Linda Toscano and owners Richard Gutnick and Gary Cocco. He made all of his starts at Freehold Raceway, where he swept the New Jersey Sire Stakes Green Acres series and ended his brief campaign with a victory in a division of the New Jersey Futurity. His combined win margin in his five starts was 25-1/2 lengths.
“He’s a really, really nice horse,” Toscano said. “He’s an honest horse. He’s done everything I’ve asked him to do up to this point. I hope that he’ll have a good year.”
On Saturday, Market Share will make his 2012 debut in the $46,100 elimination for the Dexter Cup at Freehold. The top six finishers in the eight-horse elim will join Frost Bites K and Southwind Austin in the $138,300 final on May 5. Frost Bites K and Southwind Austin received byes based on lifetime earnings.
Market Share, driven regularly by Jeff Gregory, prepped for his opener by winning a qualifier at Freehold in 1:57.3 on April 12 and a qualifier at the Meadowlands in 1:57 on April 20.
“He’s come back real well so far,” Toscano said. “[The qualifier at the Meadowlands] was his first time ever on a mile track and I would’ve loved to seen him race off a helmet, but it didn’t work out that way. Jeff said he was very much in hand, so I’m happy with him.”
Market Share (Revenue S-Classical Flirt) was purchased as a yearling for $16,000 at the Lexington Selected Sale. He is a half-brother to Photogenic Legs, who was second to Costa Rica in the 2009 New Jersey Sire Stakes fall final for two-year-old filly trotters at Freehold and the Green Acres winner in 2010.
In the Dexter elim, Market Share will start from post six. To his inside, from the rail, will be Markz Moose, Trouble, Not Afraid, Joey Chestnut and Astarsborn Hanover while to his outside are On The Podium and Broadway Zinger. A Starsborn Hanover, Not Afraid and Market Share are eligible to the $1.5 million Hambletonian in August, as are Frost Bites K and Southwind Austin.
“He was really strong at Freehold last fall; we know he gets around the track surface,” Toscano said of Market Share. “It’s a nice way to start.”
Market Share is eligible to stakes including the Breeders Crown, Yonkers Trot and Goodtimes Trot, but Toscano has no set plans at this point.
“He’s staked to pretty much everything,” said Toscano, who trained Breeders Crown winner Chapter Seven for an ownership group that included Market Share’s Gutnick and Cocco last year. “He’ll follow on the coat tails of all the other good ones and we’ll see. We’ll zig and zag if we have to. He’s given me a lot of options. He’ll tell us where to put him.”
This story courtesy of Harness Racing Communications, a division of the U.S. Trotting Association. For more information, visit www.ustrotting.com.