Therealprincess is looking like the real deal in the Maritimes.
The three-year-old pacing filly is currently having herself a perfect six-for-six start to her sophomore year while facing stakes competition for trainer Eddy Doucette and his longtime Kensington, P.E.I. partners.
The Doucette trainee equalled the 1:54.3 divisional track record at Truro Raceway winning the Donnie & George Turner Memorial earlier this summer and most recently won the Frank & Beth Stanfield Memorial on July 22 at the Nova Scotia half-mile track. She tops the three-year-old pacing filly standings in the Atlantic Sires Stakes heading into the third leg and was a dominant winner in the $34,000 Maritime Breeders Stakes at Charlottetown Driving Park for her richest score to date. Therealprincess has earned $47,018 so far this year and still has plenty of time to add to the total over the rest of the racing season.
As a rookie, Therealprincess made a dozen starts and made it to the winner’s circle on five separate occasions while earning $35,748. Doucette saw some major improvements in his stable star over the winter.
“She had a good year last year,” Doucette told Trot Insider. “She got sick and missed a few stake races but finished off well.”
Doucette has noticed his young filly grow over the offseason.
“She’s really muscled up. She still has a great attitude.”
But he also knows he has a little troublemaker that he must keep his eye on.
“You can’t turn your back on her when the door is open,” he noted.
It is not too surprising that we are seeing a young filly with some attitude able to translate that into success on the track.
Bred by partner Blaine Thibeau, Therealprincess is by Source Of Pride out of the Art Major mare Deviliciously Good, making her a half-sister to multiple Atlantic Sires Stakes winner Therealdeal.
The filly’s sire, a sibling to Breeders Crown champions American Jewel and Luck Be Withyou, had himself a good racing career with 120 lifetime starts and set a track record of 1:50.4 over Yonkers Raceway. He earned $322,734 while making it 21 times to the winner’s circle.
“[Source Of Pride’s] second crop of yearlings are starting to turn out really good,” said Doucette. “Blaine Thibeau’s mare [Deviliciously Good] has been a good mare for him.”
Deviliciously Good had a short racing career -- she had 24 lifetime starts and won only four times -- but she has been able to produce a clear talent in Therealprincess.
A group of four gentlemen own Therealprincess: Doucette along with Thibeau, and two other partners, Grant Mann and Gordon MacLeod. Sometimes the story behind how a group gets together can be simplistic but it can still be impactful years later.
“At least 10 years ago now, Grant and I had a mare and we decided to breed her,” explained Doucette, who caught the harness racing bug from his late father Lloyd Doucette and has maintained a small stable of his own for decades. “We had Blaine and Gordon as friends that had always wanted to have a part of a horse and they decided to jump in on a yearling I had at the time and the rest is history.”
Therealprincess’s run of six wins in a row is reminiscent of another filly that went on a similar run for Doucette and company. Elm Grove Inarush went on her own six-race win streak during her 2014 award-winning season in the Maritimes. Now a broodmare, she was sold after her three-year-old season and ended up winning 32 times and earning more than $320,000 from 129 lifetime starts.
Now Therealprincess will look to make more history for the group. With her next stakes race scheduled for Old Home Week, she will be looking to add to her wins and earnings as the stakes season continues in Atlantic Canada.