When contemplating plunking down a wager on a horse race, serious punters like to get as much information as they possibly can
. When a trainer says, “I think, if everything goes right, she’ll jog up there Saturday night,” real gamblers tend to raise an eyebrow.
The trainer in question is Carl Jamieson, and the trotting filly he is referring to is three-year-old Cross Of Lorraine. The lass will be contesting Race 3 on Georgian Downs' Saturday 'Gold Rush' card of racing, which will see 12 dashes go postward on a card where large purses will be the norm.
Cross Of Lorraine has drawn Post 5 in the nine-horse dash, a $130,000 Ontario Sires Stakes Gold final. In her OSS elimination last weekend, the daughter of Angus Hall distaffer set a track and an OSS record with a 1:55.2 victory.
As aforementioned, Jamieson said that he thought that his charge will jog Saturday if everything goes alright.
Purchased by Jamieson and his partners Thomas Kyron of Toronto, Ont. and Hope Johnson of London, Ont. for $50,000 from the 2008 Canadian Open Yearling Sale, Cross Of Lorraine made just three starts as a two-year-old before Jamieson decided to press the pause button on her career.
“We x-rayed her knees and she had a lot of lines and cracks and stuff, so we quit racing her thinking she would come back as a three-year-old healed, but it wasn’t so,” the horseman explained. “She’s one of those that take a long time to heal.”
Cross Of Lorraine spent the winter in Florida, where another set of x-rays indicated that the healing process was not complete, so the partners scaled back their hopes for the flawlessly gaited youngster to focus exclusively on the OSS program. Jamieson altered the filly’s routine to include swimming, magnetic therapy, and treatment in a hyperbaric chamber in an attempt to speed up her healing process. So far the approach looks like the right one, as the filly seems to gain strength with each start, but Jamieson remains cautious.
“I tell my partners every race could be the last one,” he explained. “It’s a shame, she’s a beautiful gaited filly, she doesn’t wear a thing.”
Paul Mackenzie will be back in the race bike for Friday’s Gold final, and Jamieson says the veteran reinsman knows Cross Of Lorraine faces some stiff competition from the fillies lining up to her left. Starting at Post 2 is Emmylou Who, who finished a narrowly beaten second in the $557,000 Elegantimage Stakes at Mohawk Racetrack on June 26. From Post 3 is reigning Gold final champion Random Destiny, and from Post 4 is last week’s other elimination winner Ipromisenottotell.
A pitched battle between the four talented young trotters could make Cross Of Lorraine’s OSS record a very brief notation in the provincial history books.
Four races after the sophomore trotting fillies square off, the trotting colts will take centre stage on the Gold Rush program, and trainer Chad Milner will send a pair of contenders into the $130,000 fray.
The headliner from the Milner barn is elimination winner Windsun Galaxie, who cruised to a 1:55.1 score last weekend. The Kadabra son, bred and owned by Harley Harkness’ Windsun Farm Inc. of Uxbridge, Ont., will make his tenth start of the season in the Gold final, and Milner says the leggy youngster has already exceeded expectations.
“He was a nice horse last year as a two-year-old, he was just really big. I was lucky Harley agreed to shut him down,” explained Milner. “I had him in Florida through the winter and he showed he could trot. I said he’d trot in 1:55 to Harley before we started the year.”
Raced just two times as a freshman, Windsun Galaxie has more than made up for it this season with four wins, two seconds, one third, one fourth and one fifth in nine starts for earnings of $117,800. Last weekend’s victory was the colt’s first in provincial action, and Milner knows the youngster will have to fight tooth and nail for every additional piece of OSS hardware.
“It’s very competitive, there are lots of horses — Text Me, Blair Burgess’ horse (Arriba Amigo) — that can win depending on how the trip unfolds,” the trainer said.
Working in Windsun Galaxie’s favour on Saturday is a better post position than he has drawn for any stake final so far this season. Rather than Post 10, the colt and driver Paul MacDonell will start from Post 6.
Stablemate Celebrity Ferrari and driver Jack Moiseyev will benefit from Post 2 in their first ever Gold final appearance. The Ken Warkentin son finished third behind Arriba Amigo in his elimination last week, and Milner was suitably impressed.
“I got him four days before that race,” says the horseman, who conditions the colt for Celebrity Farms of New York, New York. “Staffan (Lind) said he was better than he looked on paper, and he was right.”
Last week’s outing was just Celebrity Ferrari’s second of the season, so the colt should be even sharper for Saturday’s $130,000 final.
In addition to the lucrative purse money up for grabs on Saturday, the breeders of all four Gold final winners will receive a $3,000 credit toward the purchase of an Ontario-sired yearling at the 2010 yearling sales, compliments of the Standardbred Breeders of Ontario Association.
Mining for all of the on and off track riches will begin at 7:25 p.m. on Saturday, with the Gold finals slated as Races 3, 4, 7, and 9, and the Masters Series finals for aged trotters and pacers going in behind the Georgian Downs gate in Races 5, 6, 8 and 10.
To view the entries, click here.
(With files from the OSS)