The tandem of Blake Piwniuk and Trevor Williams were absolutely dominant at the Miami Fair mini-meet. Will they be able to take that success to Winnipeg in one week's time?
On Saturday (July 29), Miami's half-mile oval hosted the third card of its three-card season. Those cards were shifted away from The Loop, Canada's newest harness racing oval located in Winnipeg, Man. at the Red River Exhibition. Officials with The Loop confirmed to Trot Insider that licensing approvals were granted for The Loop to open on Saturday, Aug. 5, pending CPMA approval. The first condition sheet for The Loop is available here on the Standardbred Canada website.
Saturday's action at Miami featured 10 races, with half of them being won by the Piwniuk-Williams duo. They swept the first three dashes of the day, connecting with Irish Luke (2:04.1, $2.30) in the first, Handcuffed (2:00.4, $2.90) in the second and Tuff As Buff (2:01.2, $2.10) in the third for the natural hat trick.
Piwniuk and Williams then connected in the co-features of the card, winning the $4,500 Fillies & Mares Open Pace with I Will Do It for the third straight week. The eight-year-old daughter of Camluck - Artists Flower once again stalked from off the early pace and closed to pick off Pure Addition (Tyler Grundy) by more than a length in 1:58.3.
Despite winning at this level the first two weeks, I Will Do It was sent off as the 5-1 fourth choice and paid $12.40 to win. She's owned by Adam Mace of Altona, Mike Williams of Winnipeg and Aurel Vodon of Virden, Man., and she picked up her 18th career win to go with $105,716 in earnings.
Keystone Tenacious lived up to his name with a track record tally in the $4,800 Open Pace. While not as impressive visually as his 20-length romp two weeks ago, the mile time was much swifter. On top at every call, Keystone Tenacious powered away to a 1:55.4 score to shave two-fifths of a second off the mark held by Woodmere Alvin. Tagoras (Clayton Braybrook) was next best, more than five lengths in arrears.
Make that 25 lifetime wins for Keystone Tenacious, an eight-year-old gelding by So Surreal out of Take My Pulse, owned by Timothy Gordon of Spruce Grove, Alta. He paid $4.30 to win, and lifted his lifetime bankroll to $416,775 in his 128th start.
The red-hot Piwniuk from Macnutt, Sask. sports a 0.714 UDRS thus far in 2023, with Landmark, Man.'s Williams not far behind on the training side with a 0.645 UTRS on the season.
For the results from Saturday's card of harness racing at Miami, click the following link: Saturday Results - Miami.