Tuesday’s fifth race at Georgian Downs features a clash of the two-year-old pacing colt titans, as four colts currently ranked in the top 10 will square off in the fourth Ontario Sires Stakes Grassroots event
of their season.
Among the titans stepping up behind the gate is the undefeated Adventure Bound, bred, raised and trained at Millar Farms in Newmarket, ON. Currently tied for third in the division standings with 100 points from victories in his August 21 and September 4 Grassroots starts, Adventure Bound and regular reinsman Randy Fritz will line up at Post 2 in the talent laden field, which includes division leader Just Asign To Me from Post 5, second ranked Hi Sir from Post 3, and the number seven point earner Rileys Luck from Post 1.
“I saw the sheet and he’s in against some pretty good horses,” says George Millar, who has been pleasantly surprised by the colt’s efforts since a mid-summer schooling race at Georgian Downs.
“We schooled him in 1:58 at Georgian and then he qualified in 1:56,” Millar recalls. “He looked like he would be a pretty nice Grassroots colt.”
Following that 1:56.2 qualifier at Mohawk Racetrack, trainer Eric Adams dropped Adventure Bound into a two-year-old event at Mohawk and the son of Camluck and Unchained Speed battled to a front end victory in 1:54.3.
A trip to Sudbury Downs was next on the schedule and the colt delivered another front end performance to earn his first Grassroots trophy, stopping the clock in 1:57.3.
In the September 4 Grassroots event at Hanover Raceway, Adventure Bound once again went gate-to-wire in 1:59.3, over a track rated three seconds slower than normal.
“I never really figured him for racing on the front end,” muses Millar. “I’m quite sure he’ll be a much better horse coming off a helmet.
“He shows a lot of maturity for a two-year-old,” adds the owner-breeder. “When some horses get taken to the front they get a little speed crazy, but he doesn’t really fall into that category.”
Millar says he and Adams considered taking a run at the Gold Series after Adventure Bound captured his first two Grassroots starts, but the dominance of Ontario-sired colts in the recent Metro Pace at Mohawk — Prodigal Seelster won his elimination in 1:50 and Mystician won the $1 million final — put an end to that idea.
“I thought about going to the Gold, but when I saw Prodigal Seelster and Mystician so dominant I thought, well, we could do pretty good in the Grassroots for the rest of the season,” says Millar wryly. “It’s just nice to have a few nice horses racing. We had three or four years that were pretty lean.”
Millar says the focus for the remainder of the Grassroots season will be on keeping Adventure Bound healthy and happy, hoping that he can secure a spot in the Grassroots Semifinal at Western Fair Raceway on October 15. The top 16 point earners advance to the Semifinal round, with the top four finishers from each Semifinal earning a berth in the $100,000 Grassroots Final.
“There is a lot of stress on a young horse going from 30 degrees [Celsius] to 13 degrees [Celsius], a lot are starting to get sick,” notes Millar. “And shipping around to different tracks, if they don’t have it when they get there, they might have it when they get home.”
Adventure Bound and his heavyweight colleagues will battle in the second $24,000 Grassroots division on Tuesday. The two-year-old pacing colts square off in their first event in Race 3 and also compete in Races 7, 8 and 10. Post time for Georgian Downs’ Tuesday, September 14 program is 7:25 p.m.
To view Tuesday's entries, click here.
(OSS)