Sebastian K's dominance may be overshadowing his competition, but Creatine is taking steps early in his four-year-old season to be a contender with the older trotters.
Creatine and driver Mike Lachance will start from post seven in Saturday night's $603,000 Maple Leaf Trot final. A son of Andover Hall – Berry Nice Muscles, Creatine banked over $800,000 last year as a three-year-old, with his biggest victory coming in the Kentucky Futurity.
This season, the Bob Stewart trainee has had to quickly make the transition from age three-to-four to compete with a talented group of older trotters led by Sebastian K
In four starts, Creatine has yet to find the winner's circle, but has shown he can hang with the big boys by picking up a cheque in three of his four starts.
In the Maple Leaf Trot elimination, Creatine finished second and four lengths behind winner Sebastian K, but the effort pleased his conditioner.
"We were very happy with him, Mike (Lachance) actually never pulled the ear plugs," said Stewart following the elimination. "He saw he was going to be second and he was coming back in six days from a very tough trip at the Meadowlands, we couldn't be happier actually."
Before the Maple Leaf Trot elimination, Creatine finished fifth in the Hambletonian Maturity, a race restricted for four-year-old trotters only.
While Creatine has shown he can compete with the older trotters, Stewart said he would have liked to have seen more opportunities for the four-year-olds to compete against each other, rather than having to jump right in against the heavyweights.
"It's very tough (transition from three-to-four)...they should have made that Hambletonian Maturity a series of three races and a final," said Stewart. "They had the money to do it and these four-year-olds would've been able to get their legs underneath themselves a little more."
Creatine and the rest of the top older trotters may be wishing their was a stake race without Sebastian K as the Scandinavian Powerhouse has yet to be lose in five starts.
Stewart said it was bad timing that this was the season he had a competitive older trotter.
"It's just unfortunate that he had to come back as a four-year-old the year that Sebastian K showed up; any other year I would feel better about the situation."
Heading into the Maple Leaf Trot final, Stewart admits Sebastian K will have to be off his game to get beat and hopes he can find some races down the road to avoid the world's fastest trotter.
"To be realistic you don't see him ever beating Sebastian K, unless Sebastian K slips some, but he's eligible to everything and hopefully for our sake there are some races at Indiana and a race in Ohio that hopefully Sebastian K won't go to."
Sebastian K may hold down the spot as top older trotter, but Stewart is confident that Creatine is good enough to be right there in second.
"He's going to hold his own against all the rest of them I think."
The full field for the evening’s Maple Leaf Trot can be found below.
$603,000 Maple Leaf Trot
1. Sebastian K
2. Market Share
3. Intimidate
4. Archangel
5. Wishing Stone
6. Mister Herbie
7. Creatine
8. Undercover Strike
9. Flanagan Memory
10. Modern Family
AE1. Wheeling N Dealin
(WEG)