Coming off a freshman campaign in which he earned an O'Brien Award as Canada's Two-Year-Old Trotting Colt of the Year, Il Villaggio has the Hambletonian circled on his calendar
, and Trot Insider recently spoke with trainer Erv Miller about the bay son of Yankee Glide.
From eight starts at two, Il Villaggio trotted to six wins, $488,183 in purses and a mark of 1:55.4, which was taken over the Meadowlands Racetrack in a $33,100 New Jersey Sire Stakes event on July 16.
Il Villaggio then came off the pace to record a victory in the $200,000 NJSS finals at 'The Big M' on July 23 before heading up to Ontario. Once on Canadian soil, the $100,000 yearling purchase snagged a division of the Champlain Stakes at Mohawk Racetrack before sweeping the elimination and $515,000 final of the William Wellwood Memorial Stakes at the Campbellville oval.
After shipping down to Kentucky and triumphing by open lengths in a division of the Bluegrass Stakes, Il Villaggio looked to seal his season with a win in the Breeders Crown back up in Ontario, this time at Woodbine Racetrack.
While racing as the favourite in his Breeders Crown elim, Il Villaggio broke stride, thus missing the final.
"He was just getting a little off for that race," Miller explained to Trot Insider. "Timmy (driver Tim Tetrick) said he was game, but he was just off. He had raced really well for his entire season and maybe it just caught up to him a little bit."
Miller explained that although the last line on his card shows the break, the colt was put away in good order, wintered well, and now understands his business better.
"He's been coming back really well," Miller said. "He's more mature. Last year he had a tendency to be really grabby. This year you can tell that he just understands things a little better than he did last year. I'm really looking forward to racing him this year."
The year will come with high expectations as Il Villaggio topped the 2010 USTA Experimental Ratings for three-year-old trotters, assessed a time of 1:51 by harness racing icon Stan Bergstein.
In terms of a schedule for the young O'Brien Award winner, Miller said that he has a general plan for the colt, but nothing has been etched in stone just yet.
"We'll probably just get him into a couple of qualifiers, then maybe a race and then into the stakes. He'll be staying at the Meadowlands until after the Hambletonian."