Round 2 of the Ontario Sires Stakes Grassroots Semifinal battles will take place at Grand River Raceway on Friday evening, as the province’s top two-year-olds make their bid for a berth in the season-ending championship.
Trainer Carl Jamieson will send Senorita Santanna after a top-four finish in the second $30,000 Grassroots Semifinal, and the trainer, in the midst of a move to a new farm in Rockwood, Ont., was not surprised to hear that the pacing filly will start from Post 7.
“That’s been the story of my life this year. I can’t draw an inside post,” says the horseman, ruefully. “They say 'think positive,' but I’ve been thinking positive all summer and it hasn’t done a thing.”
Senorita Santanna heads into the post season off a gate-to-wire Grassroots victory at Rideau Carleton Raceway on September 9. The win was the Santanna Blue Chip filly’s second in provincial stakes action this summer; she also grabbed a trophy in the July 1 season opener at Mohawk Racetrack. Book-ended between those victories were one second, one third and one fourth-place result, giving the filly 145 points and sole ownership of third spot in the division standings.
“She’s not a bad filly, but she’s not quite good enough for the big girls,” says Jamieson, who had hoped the pacer would develop into a Gold Series horse after showing some early promise.
“I thought she was better than that, but things just didn’t work out,” he adds.
Jamieson and his partners Thomas Kyron of Toronto and George Harrison of Preston, England purchased Senorita Santanna out of last fall’s Forest City Yearling Sale, offering up $17,000 for the daughter of mare Sweetie Gonzalez who is a full-sister to $1 million winner Sweet Reflection. The horseman will turn the filly over to his son, Jody Jamieson, before the fourth race and hope the reinsman can find a path into the top four from Post 7.
“She’ll be there to play anyway,” says the trainer.
Division point leader Western Empress will also battle in the fourth race, benefiting from the advantageous Post 1. Second ranked Racey Miss, who rides into Grand River on a four race win streak, will start from Post 3. The other freshman pacing filly Semifinal will be contested in Race 6.
Two-year-old trotting colt Ale Ale Jandro and driver Anthony Haughan will also be saddled with Post 7 in their Semifinal, but trainer Jim Tropea is trying to remain optimistic about the pair’s chances.
“The seven doesn’t bother me too much. I was kind of hoping for the five anyway,” says the Orangeville resident, who also owns the son of Amigo Hall and Andover Sylvie. “But I play it week by week. I don’t get my hopes up.”
With two victories and three thirds in his six Grassroots starts and the number three spot in the division standings, Ale Ale Jandro’s season has already far surpassed what Tropea envisioned when he was battling with the gelding through the winter. A modest $2,700 purchase out of last fall’s Blooded Horse Sale in Delaware, Ohio, Ale Ale Jandro was more than a handful through his early lessons.
“A lot of the time through the winter I didn’t even know if we were going to make it to the races, he was that erratic,” says the horseman.
“I’m stabled with Norm Dunstan and he used to say, ‘I’m glad you own that one.’ I heard that more than once over the winter,” Tropea continues with a wry chuckle. “He probably aged me a few years too, but in the long run I guess it’s worked out.”
In spite of his early apprehension Dunstan has been instrumental in Ale Ale Jandro’s success, loaning Tropea a race bike large enough for the trotter’s continuously growing frame.
“He uses it for Lexis Noah,” explains Tropea, who can no longer shoe-horn Ale Ale Jandro into the race bike he used at the start of the season. “He special ordered it for that horse.”
Although Tropea calls Ale Ale Jandro “awfully big for a two-year-old” the horseman has no concerns about racing the trotter over Grand River Raceway’s half-mile oval. The gelding trains and jogs on a half-mile oval every day and did all of his early season preparation at the Elora oval.
“All my schooling and qualifying I did at Grand River,” the horseman explains. “He’s been over that track eight times or nine times already. He knows it well.”
Like Senorita Santanna, Ale Ale Jandro’s Post 7 is compounded by the depth of the ninth race field. Undefeated division point leader Gotta Secret will benefit from Post 1 and number two colt North York will start at Post 2. The other trotting colt Semifinal goes postward as Race 7.
The freshman trotting fillies will battle in Races 3 and 5, and the pacing colts will square off in the eighth and tenth races. The top four finishers from each elimination will return to Grand River Raceway on Saturday, Sept. 29 for the 2012 Grassroots Championships.
Post time for the first race on Grand River Raceway’s Friday evening program is 7:05 pm.
To view the harness racing entries for Friday at Grand River, click the following link: Friday Entries - Grand River Raceway.
(OSS)