Beach Glass Returns During Friday Qualifiers

Stakes star Beach Glass made his highly-anticipated four-year-old debut during the Friday (Aug. 18) session of qualifiers at Woodbine Mohawk Park.

With Paul MacDonell at the controls, the son of Somebeachsomewhere - Im With Her sprinted to a 1:53.3 score in wire-to-wire fashion over a track rated as 'good' due to the conditions. His back half was paced in :56.1.

Trained by Brent MacGrath and owned by Schooner II Stable of Truro, N.S, Beach Glass sports a summary of 12-4-0 from 18 career starts with $1,187,416 in his bankroll and a mark of 1:47.2 taken at The Meadowlands in 2022 to make him the fastest sophomore in harness racing last year. His four-year-old season has been delayed due to complications from a prior surgery.

"I talked to Paul and he said he was straight and strong; he just let him do his own thing and he was very chilled and relaxed," trainer and co-owner MacGrath told Trot Insider after the qualifier, indicating a second qualifier was in the works. "We're looking forward to stretching him out a little next week."

The AGCO judges applied a one-second variant to the start of the morning's session, a cooler morning than expected for mid-August with a strong wind facing horses in the stretch. That variant was a two-second variant by the end of the session.

An O'Brien Award winner from 2022, Twin B Archie returned from a three-month layoff to qualify impressively for his connections. Sylvain Filion guided the gelding to a 1:55.3 score, trotting home in :28.3 to win his test by more than three lengths.

Twin B Archie has banked $776,818 in career earnings and a record of 10-6-2 in 26 starts for the partnership of trainer and co-owner Scott McEneny, Domenic Chiaravalle, Floyd Marshall and Martwest Racing Stable.

The full video stream from the Friday session is available below.

For results from the qualifying session, click the following link: Friday Results - Woodbine Mohawk Park (Qualifiers).