While 12-year-old pacer Ideal Jet has experienced a number of changes over the course of his career, two things have remained the same: his trainer and co-owner Craig Barss, and his success.
"I'm the only one that's ever trained him or shod him," said Barss. "He had a good groom for many years, Rhonda Slack, but since I moved up to Guelph area, I just do him myself."
From an early age to his current age, Ideal Jet faced a change in race strategy.
"He was a dead closer at the beginning. Chris Christoforou used to drive him quite a bit from behind and I would say it was more like when he was seven or eight, Rick Zeron put him on the point one night and he reeled off a [1]:49 mile and then, he went another one. It sort of became his trademark to punch down the third quarter and open up on them and see if he could hang on."
His scenery has varied throughout his 306 career starts as Ideal Jet has travelled across Ontario, from Flamboro Downs to Kawartha Downs to Woodbine Mohawk Park.
The change in scenery included a change in training facility. With this change, Barss found the opportunity to alter Ideal Jet's method of training. Instead of daily jogging, Ideal Jet has been swimming daily at First Line Training Centre.
"When I first moved to Joe Stutzman's farm here, it was a big relief because he honestly was a terrible jogger. He would gallop and buck and kick and pull your arms out and so, first day we were here, we got him in the pool and he actually almost went a whole calendar year without having a harness on except to race. He doesn't even warm up. He just races and so, the pool has been really good...he seems to be happy for it."
And finally, Ideal Jet became a gelding halfway through his racing career.
"Jet was always a pretty quiet stallion when he was younger, so I never thought about gelding him. He was always racing good and then, as he got older, he got a little more ornery," said Barss. "One day, he got loose in the shed row and he bit me pretty good and punctured my lung and put me down on the ground which I chalked it up to bad luck. But, another day, he bit another guy and hurt him pretty good, Bill Slack, and the next morning, I called the vet and said it was time to geld him because it was almost like a safety concern.
"Now he's mellowed as he's got older. He's mellowed and he's a lot nicer to be around. He was never that bad, but you had that in the back of your head that he could do it."
Ideal Jet has made success a constant in his life, too, with a hallmark 50 wins to go along with 38 seconds and 31 thirds. A mark of 1:49.1 and earnings of $660,239 accompany his career record.
Nurko Sokolovic co-owns Ideal Jet with Craig Barss.
Watch the full COSA TV profile on Ideal Jet below.