Trainer Casie Coleman has provided Trot Insider with a brief update on Dan Patch and O’Brien Award winner McWicked, while the bay’s owner, Ed James, has announced that the four-year-old will be part of an upstart trend that has really caught on so far in 2015.
When reached Tuesday (April 7), Coleman stated that McWicked was clocked in 2:12 earlier in the day in the jog cart.
The now-four-year-old son of McArdle raced deep into his three-year-old season last year, as he capped his award-winning campaign with a hard-earned, 1:48.4 win in the Progress Pace at Dover Downs.
“He’s healthy, he’s good, and he’s feeling good,” said Coleman, who relayed to Trot Insider that the career winner of over $1.6 million in purses is being pointed to debut in one of the preliminary legs of the Graduate Series, which will kick off May 25 at Tioga Downs before moving on to the Meadowlands Racetrack.
In speaking with Bill Galvin, Ed James took the opportunity to announce that McWicked will be racing for the ‘Stable of Horses That God Loves,’ which has been gaining consistent traction ever since it was announced in early February.
The members of the Stable That God Loves will contribute one per cent of their 2015 purse earnings to the Standardbred Racetrack Chaplaincy of Canada.
McWicked is one of the finest and richest campaigners that James has owned in his long tenure in horse racing. “I bought my first horse 59 years ago and I am still trying to get even,” he said.
McWicked was a gem of consistency last season in his three-year-old campaign, where he sported a 12-5-4 record from 23 starts, with seasonal earnings of $1,482,447 for Toronto-based James, who had purchased him at Harrisburg for $210,000.
McWicked was a multiple stakes winner in 2014 with victories in the Hempt and the Adios, among others, before capping his season with his impressive Progress Pace victory. He earned three months off after the Progress before Coleman started back with him in the Sunshine State.
Some of McWicked’s big name stablemates in the Stable That God Loves include Adriano Sorella’s 2013 Little Brown Jug winner Vegas Vacation, John Craig’s 2013 Breeders Crown winner Luck Be Withyou, John Fielding’s Shake It Cerry, recipient of a 2014 Dan Patch Award, and Mac Nichol’s Kentucky Derby hopeful, Madefromlucky, who is scheduled to head postward in the $1 million Arkansas Derby on April 11.
For regular up-to-date postings on the Stable That God Loves follow on Facebook and on Twitter @StableGodLoves.
(With files from the Standardbred Racetrack Chaplaincy of Canada)