The business of training trotting colts is not for the faint of heart
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Ask Jim Raymer what he thought of three-year-old trotting colt Keystone Activator’s chances last fall, after a particularly bumpy spell of frustrating performances: “When he won and set a [seasonal] record [1:55.2] at The Meadows, two weeks [prior] he was going to be a gelding and go to the fairs. Lead line class in the morning, pleasure class in the afternoon and race in the races at night,” Raymer said with a laugh.
But Raymer got the last laugh on the chestnut colt, who won his elimination of the Dexter Cup at Freehold Raceway on May 2 in a track-record 1:55.3. The Hambletonian-eligible son of SJs Caviar figures to be a contender in Saturday’s $181,369 final.
Keystone Activator was a challenge to get going during his two-year-old season, though he finished the year with a respectable second-place finish in his Breeders Crown elimination and a fifth-place check to Muscle Hill in the final.
It was trotting hopples that seemed to help the colt get a handle on the task at hand. In his first seven starts without hopples, Keystone Activator had a win and a second-place finish to his credit. In his final six races of 2008, he had two wins and three second-place efforts.
“Last year, he used to get in behind horses and not want to sit tight, and start throwing his head,” Raymer said. “When we put the hopples on that seemed to be the key – that was in late August last year. He can now do two things at once. Before he could either trot or gawk and look at horses. Well, now he can trot and look at horses. It’s like trying to pat your head and rub your stomach; he can forget about one thing and keep going with the trotting hopples on.”
Raymer, whose wife Mary, racing as Trillium Stable, owns the colt along with his daughter-in-law Tammie Raymer, did not let the colt down too much over the winter break.
“Nowadays, I don’t think we can shut them down like we used to between the two- and three-year-old year,” Raymer said. “Who would have thought you’d have to trot in (1):55 to win an elimination of the Dexter? I tried letting them down [go completely out of training] over the last eight years and I found the longer I let them down, it took an extra six or eight weeks to being back where they were when they left off.
“Before, we used to always be in the same boat; we’d all start up the first of the season, you’d trot in (1):59 and whatever and improve as you went along, but now you’ve got horses that have never raced coming out of the woodwork. The ones that did race, they’ve got to come back and be ready. When Muscle Hill [early favourite for the Hambletonian] comes back, he’s probably going to have to trot in (1):53, right where he left off. As long as they’re sound, I’d rather have them close by and keep an eye on everything that’s going on.
“Nowadays we’re like Thoroughbreds, we’re ready to go from the time they step on the track as a two-year-old; you can’t really let them have any length of time off. I stopped with him for six weeks after the Breeders Crown and then I started him back. It was a good enough winter that he got enough training miles in him and he was good in that series at The Meadows.”
Keystone Activator, who has victories in four of five starts this season, won the $30,200 final of the Primo Spur Series on April 27 at The Meadows in western Pennsylvania.
Raymer drove the flashy chestnut with a flaxen mane and tail some last year, but it is unlikely he’ll be back in the race bike. George Brennan drove the horse in his Dexter elim.
“He’s graduated to the point where he doesn’t need me,” Raymer said. “I always like to drive them until they get everything in order. [Catch drivers] give the horse the opportunity to win, that’s why we use them. You use their expertise and hopefully the expertise of the horse to do well, too.”
Keystone Activator was not on Raymer’s shopping list at the Standardbred Horse Sale in Harrisburg when he bought the colt for $10,000 in 2007. Raymer was shopping for trotting fillies at the time.
“My daughter-in-law came up to me outside the walking ring at Harrisburg and said, ‘Dad, I’d like a chestnut.’ I said, ‘Yeah, you and about four other people in here,’ (citing the unpopularity of the reddish horses among most trainers). ‘You go find one.’
“So she turned and walked down to Hempt Farm [consignment], which is right near the walking ring, and she was back in about a minute, ‘I found one, I found one!’ I walked down and looked at him, he’s got good conformation, maybe a little on the small side, but that doesn’t bother me, I tell people I buy them by the pound. I never worry about the size and they seem to trot efficiently when they’ve got the SJs Photo in them [Keystone Activator is a grandson of SJs Photo].
“I really liked his pedigree - I imagine between his color and the fact that he wasn’t an overly big colt, that kept people from looking any further than over the stall gate at him. If he’d been a brown horse, he probably would have gone for $40,000 and we wouldn’t be talking right now.”
Keystone Activator is staked to the division’s major races, even though he was a modestly-priced yearling.
“It’s compliments of Green Day that he’s got all those races to race for,” laughed Raymer, whose wife Mary owns the $6,000 yearling purchase that has now won $890,646. “Green Day is the one that proved we could race in those upper races and Keystone Activator is getting the benefit of what we learned before this. We took the shot of racing in the Hambletonian and Kentucky Futurity and the Yonkers Trot. The biggest thing about him [Keystone Activator] is that he’s a professional out there.
“Like George [Brennan] said the other day, you’d never know there was a recall [in his Dexter elimination] and with him coming back after five days [after The Meadows final] he should have been ready to come out of his skin by the time they got the gate going. George said he knew he was all right when they flashed the light [to call the recall] and he just turned around and took him back. The next time, he waited off the pace for him and George was never worried, he kept coming.”
Regardless of the outcome of the Dexter Cup, Raymer is not conceding to any other horse in the looks department.
“I don’t think there’s a better looking horse – because of his colour and flash. He just carries himself like he thinks he’s one of the best. The Thoroughbred people love chestnuts; I don’t know why Standardbred people don’t. I’m benefitting from the fact that my daughter-in-law wanted a chestnut horse.”
(Harness Racing Communications)