The only horses better than Luc Blais's horses during the qualifying session on Saturday, May 24 at Woodbine Mohawk were also trained by Luc Blais.
The O'Brien Award winning horseman sent out six horses during the nine-race qualifying session — shifted to Saturday from its originally-scheduled Friday spot on the calendar — and the horses clearly didn't mind the wait. Blais trainees were best in four of those dashes, with the top two finishers in two of those qualifiers. All six of those horses are owned by Determination of Montreal, Quebec.
Emoticon Legacy and driver Louis-Philippe Roy lunged past stablemate Lasting Dream (driven by Tyler Jones) at the wire to win the third dash by a head in 1:57. A homebred son of Walner - Emoticon Hanover, Emoticon Legacy won four of seven as a freshman while banking $220,637.
Lightly-raced sophomore Eurobank Hanover prevailed in the fifth for Roy and Blais in 2:00.4, then Roy came back to win the seventh with the accomplished Drawn Impression. That four-year-old Muscle Hill sister to Emoticon Legacy bested Emoji Hanover (Jones) 1:56, and she'll look to add to her eight lifetime wins and $682,515 in earnings in the upcoming weeks.
Qualifying for the third straight week, Private Access provided the fastest mile of the morning amongst the Blais trainees and the fastest trotting mile of the morning — a 1:55.1 effort with Roy at the controls. The runner-up in last year's Canadian Trotting Classic, Private Access (Muscle Hill - Open Access) sports a 3-6-2 summary from 22 lifetime outings with nearly a half million ($480,436) in earnings.
The full qualifying stream from Saturday is available below.
For results from the qualifying session, click the following link: Saturday Results - Woodbine Mohawk Park (Qualifiers).
(Standardbred Canada)