Flamboro Downs fans will be treated to the first glimpse of Ontario’s two-year-old pacing fillies on Sunday, and trainer Rod Therres is hoping Last Luck can earn a share of the $40,000 up for grabs in her Gold Series Elimination
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“She just wants to be a racehorse,” says the Cambridge resident, who had good fortune on last year’s freshman pacing filly circuit with $221,200 winner Village Janus.
While Therres is hoping Last Luck can also make her mark in the provincial program, he does not expect the daughter of Mach Three and Amazing Luck to follow the same path as Village Janus, noting that the fillies have radically different personalities and will require a different management style.
“Janus was pretty easy-going, kind of lazy, where this one’s just the opposite, she’s hot and we’ve got to control her speed,” Therres explains. “Janus was lazy; this Mach Three is just like a ball of fire.”
An $18,000 purchase out of the 2010 Forest City Yearling Sale, Last Luck learned her early lessons with ease and had Therres and his partner James Vinnell of Langley, BC thinking Ontario Sires Stakes well before entries were due for Sunday’s contest.
“She was very easy to break and to start her, and then to train down she was really, really good,” says the horseman. “You just knew training down she was going to make it as a two-year-old, early.”
In preparation for Sunday’s Gold Elimination, Therres qualified Last Luck at Mohawk Racetrack on June 17 and the filly was a hard closing second in a 1:59.3 mile. Rick Zeron piloted the filly in her qualifying effort and will be back in the race bike on Sunday, steering Last Luck from Post 2 in the second of three $40,000 Gold Eliminations.
“Rick says he’s coming to drive her, he loved her,” says Therres. “He couldn’t believe how strong she was.”
Therres expects Last Luck to find the Flamboro Downs half-mile to her liking, noting that she is a small, strong filly. His only concern is that this week’s trip to the racetrack will find the hot-blooded youngster wired a little tighter than she was before the qualifier.
“(Last week she was) better than I thought she was going to be. We qualified beside a Mach Three, Janus did, last year, and Janus just took it all in, she didn’t care, and this Mach Three beside us was just going nuts and I figured that would be her (Last Luck),” recalls the horseman. “But she wasn’t, she was good. We put an ear hood on her in the paddock and she was great. But I think the second time is going to be a little different. She’s going to know something is up.”
If the filly can keep her cool before the race, Therres and Zeron will be looking to finish in the top three and earn a return trip to the Dundas oval for the July 3 Gold Final, worth $130,000. Among the other fillies in the second elimination are two winners from the freshman qualifying ranks at Mohawk. Class Of O Nine was a 1:56.3 winner on June 17 and will start from Post 5 Sunday, while Legal Entity posted a 1:58 victory on June 21 and gets Post 7.
The two-year-old pacing fillies will match wits in Races 7, 8 and 9 on Flamboro Downs’ Sunday evening program, which gets under way at 6 p.m.
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To view entries for Sunday's card of harness racing, click the following link: Sunday Entries – Flamboro Downs.