Thanks to the magnificent efforts of a host of young emerging talent and a consistent group of stakes-winning hotshots, the Stable That God Loves is rocking.
Wins and Stable earnings are piling up, along with reams of excellent publicity for the program, and all of harness racing. It has attracted mainstream media attention on national television, and in daily newspapers, industry magazines, racing websites, Facebook and Twitter.
Stable members are campaigning far and wide in support of the program to support the diligent efforts of the Standardbred Chaplaincy of Canada. From Yonkers Raceway, Belmont Park, the Meadowlands and Pompano Park, to Mohawk Raceway, Grand River, Clinton and Red Shores in Charlottetown, P.E.I, a total of 29 racetracks have hosted members of The Stable throughout the season. And, on any given night Stable members can be found competing and winning around North America.
The Stable now boasts 15 stakes winners, many of them multiple winners, and to September 11, Stable members have recorded an impressive 90 trips down victory lane, with 66 seconds and 64 thirds.
Victories in rich stakes events at tracks on both sides of the U.S./ Canada border have boosted The Stable’s purse earnings well over the $3 million mark, with one per cent of that amount earmarked for the Standardbred Chaplaincy that survives on private donations and income from its annual Doug Hyatt Memorial Golf Tourney.
Madefromlucky, the lone Thoroughbred in the program, owned by Erin, Ontario horseman Mac Nichol and Everett Dobson, one of the owners of the Oklahoma Thunder of the NBA, continues to be The Stable’s top money-earner with $820,200. The talented sophomore, who won a pair of rich Grade 11 stakes and finished second to Triple Crown hero American Pharoah in the $1 million Arkansas Derby, is being prepped for the $1 million Pennsylvania Derby at Parx Racing in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, where he will be the likely favourite in the mile and one-eighth mile test on September 19.
Luck Be Withyou, competing and winning against some of the continent’s best Free-For-Allers, and trained by Milton horseman Bill Cass, is in second spot on The Stable’s dollar roster with $351,540 in the bank for Toronto’s John Craig.
The multi-talented, sophomore trotting princess, and Grand Circuit lass, Elegant Serenity, trained and driven by Roger Mayotte for owner/breeder Doug Millard of Woodstock, Ontario, is consistently lighting up the teletimer these nights with five trips down victory lane, including a string of major stakes victories that have amassed $260,533, good for third spot among money-winners in the Stable That God Loves.
John Fielding’s 2014 Dan Patch Award winner, Shake It Cerry, holds down fourth spot on The Stable’s dollar roster with $228,514, and rapidly moving up the ladder in wins and purse earnings is Rockin With Dewey, co-owned by Joey Ingham and trainer Ben Baillargeon. The five-year-old registered back-to-back victories in the $100,000 Honourable Earl Rowe Memorial Trot at Georgian Downs and the $40,000 preliminary of the Miss Versatility at Tioga Downs. Her next engagement is in the $140,000 final of the Miss Versatility on Jug day in Delaware, Ohio on September 24.
Can Rockin With Dewey handle Delaware’s half-mile track? “She can trot around a soup bowl,” said trainer Ben Baillargeon.
The Stable That God Loves has an abundance of talent and is bursting at the seams, but stall space is always available. Every horse, regardless of ability, is welcome and guaranteed a stall. Please send requests for stall space to Ken Middleton: [email protected], or Norm Clements: [email protected].
(With files from Stable of Horses That God Loves)