With just three weeks remaining in the Ontario Sires Stakes Grassroots regular season, the two-year-old pacing colts head to Flamboro Downs on Wednesday afternoon are either taking a last stab at a berth in the post season, or simply polishing off their freshman education
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Rene Allard will start two youngsters in Wednesday’s test, and says Hold Your Hat and Stonebridge Bonus will be there for the education.
“I don’t think they can get enough points to go in the Grassroots Semifinal,” explained the trainer. “I’ll probably race them in this Grassroots and the next Grassroots and then turn them out. There are other races next summer.”
Both colts will be making their first start in the Grassroots program, but Hold Your Hat heads into the third $24,000 division with significantly more stakes experience than his stablemate. The Modern Art son made his Ontario Sires Stakes debut in the Gold Series season opener at Mohawk Racetrack on July 8, finishing third in his elimination, and then logged a seventh-place result in the July 15 Gold Final. He also competed in the Aug. 28 elimination round for the Metro Stake at Mohawk Racetrack, making a break and finishing eighth.
“All winter he trained down really good,” notes Allard, who conditions the colt for his partners Geoffrey Lyons Mound of Burford, ON and Michel Allard of Saint-Esprit, QC. “He’s just a step below the Gold horses.”
The partners acquired Hold Your Hat for just $7,000 at last fall’s Harrisburg Yearling Sale, and the colt made a vivid early impression, not only on Allard and his staff but also on several of the neighbours near their Flamborough training base.
“It’s actually funny, that horse, the first day we brought him out of his stall, he was kind of a hyper horse, and he got loose on us. It’s funny now, but it wasn’t funny then,” recalls Allard. “He was on Highway 5 and Highway 6, he was in the corn field, I was calling 911 and everything. It took us about three hours to catch him. It was just like a deer, because he didn’t know where to go.”
Once he recovered from his romp around the township, Hold Your Hat settled into a steady routine and Allard is hoping he can grab a share of the $24,000 Grassroots purse from Post 3 in the eighth race on Wednesday.
“The three-hole I think is perfect. He’s got gate speed too,” notes the horseman. “On the half, when the gate is going to open, he’s going to get a spot for sure.”
Waterdown, ON resident Simon Allard will steer both Hold Your Hat and Stonebridge Bonus on Wednesday.
Stonebridge Bonus will benefit from Post 1 in his Grassroots debut and his trainer is hoping the long legged son of Life Sign and $610,613 winner Stonebridge First can successfully navigate Flamboro’s half-mile oval.
“He’s a really big horse,” says Allard. “I always train him out in the middle of the racetrack because he is so big.”
A $25,000 yearling purchase, Stonebridge Bonus has just three lifetime starts to his credit, boasting a record of one second, one third and one fifth. Allard and his partners Aaron Waxman of Brantford, ON and Alan Alber of Thornhill, ON are hoping the colt can deliver another top five finish in Wednesday’s ninth race.
“I trained him this morning [Saturday] at the farm and he trained pretty good,” notes the Saint-Esprit, QC native. “We are hoping he can get a piece of it."
The two-year-old pacing colts will fight their second last Grassroots battles in Races 4, 5, 8 and 9 on Wednesday. Flamboro Downs sends its first race behind the starting gate at 1 p.m.
To view Wednesday's entries, click here.
(OSS)