Two decades after leading a Maritime-bred through a 28-race win streak to start his career, it seems Danny Romo may have found similar fortunes with another locally-raised pacer.
Of the six horses Romo currently has in training, one in particular has been a picture of perfection from the outset: a two-year-old pacer named Woodmere Stealdeal, who has won all seven of his assignments to date for owners Kevin Dorey and Robert Sumarah.
"The owners looked at him out in the field on Old Home Week over in P.E.I., and I never saw him," Romo told Trot Insider from his base in Shubenacadie, N.S., a half hour drive south of Truro Raceway.
In October 2019, Dorey and Sumarah trekked to the Atlantic Classic Yearling Sale on Prince Edward Island, and it was there where the son of Island stallion Steelhead Hanover caught Romo's eye as well.
"They had two or three picked out that they liked," Romo continued. "When I went to the sale that morning, we went through the list that they had, and that was the one we all kind of liked. We said, 'We'll go for the colt.' He was in early, and we said we'll put all our eggs in one basket and go for him, and we got him."
Dorey and Sumarah purchased Woodmere Stealdeal for $22,500 — the fourth highest price tag among 113 yearlings to pass through the sales ring. And thus far, the young gelding has lived up to all expectations.
"From day one, he was pretty much a natural," Romo related. "For a young Maritime-bred horse — they're not handled as much as the Ontario-breds — this fellow was good mannered right from day one, and that's why I think he's so good now."
Even during his early training, Woodmere Stealdeal exhibited the heart of a champion racehorse — conserving his energy until it became necessary to repel a rival ... or training partner, even.
"A couple times jogging this winter, he'd be jogging along and somebody came up behind him, and he took off on a dead run," Romo said. "He didn't want anybody to go by him. So I started putting a hood on him when I jogged him, and now he's good and relaxed.
"For a couple days after I qualified him, I forgot to put the hood on him, and I thought, 'He'd be settled down now; he's been going for a few months.' And he'd go along great until somebody came up behind him, and he'd take off again. He'd just go an eighth of a mile until you could get him settled down, and then he'd just trot along like an old horse again.
"After that, I keep a hood on him all the time jogging and warming up, stuff like that. And then after you go the second trip, he's good. He just doesn't like people passing him. He's not too much problem otherwise. I'd say he's a nice all-around colt. The first day I trucked him to a stakes race, he was by himself in the trailer, and he just trucked like an old horse."
And he won like one, too.
On July 9, Woodmere Stealdeal threw down the gauntlet in his career debut, winning an Atlantic Sires Stakes 'A' event at Red Shores Summerside by eight widening lengths in 1:57.1 — a promising first outing by all counts. In the two months since that successful debut, he has reeled off six more wins — all against stakes company, amassed $32,463 in earnings, and has already etched his name in the record books at four tracks across Atlantic Canada.
To this point, Romo has only driven Woodmere Stealdeal in qualifying races, so he's had to rely on the feedback of two of the best Maritime drivers — Marc Campbell and Clare MacDonald — to help gauge his star's development on the racetrack. He recounted an exchange with MacDonald after Woodmere Stealdeal's third start, in which he paced a 1:56.2 track record mile at Northside Downs on Cape Breton Island:
"Clare drove a lot of young horses, and she usually has her opinion when you come in. Anyway, they won the race in a track record in North Sydney, and I said, 'Clare, how was he?' All she said was, 'He's the real deal.' No other comments, so I guess that was good."
He swept through his last three starts on Prince Edward Island, including a 1:55.1 lifetime mark recorded in Atlantic Sires Stakes competition at Charlottetown and a 1:56.4 score in the Joe O'Brien Memorial at Summerside — one that saw his lead shrink to a half length at the winning post amid a late challenge from Dustylanegoliath.
While it's still early in Woodmere Stealdeal's career, it's hard not to compare him to a young pacer Romo developed in the early 2000s: Firms Phantom. The similarities are striking, after all. Despite breaking stride in his first career start, Firms Phantom bounced right back and reeled off 28 straight wins through his two- and three-year-old seasons — and all but one of them taking place against stakes competition.
"He wasn't going this kind of time," Romo said of Firms Phantom, who broke the 1:55 mark once at Truro and twice at Charlottetown during his three-year-old campaign before being sold to Ontario connections. "Everything's faster now. But this fellow's got a good set of lungs and goes easy ... so far, you don't know."
Danny Romo in qualifying action at Truro Raceway this past May
What Romo does know is that, while he figures on Woodmere Stealdeal having "six or seven races left" this season — including a couple stakes finals — he'll rely on his veteran experience and let the horse dictate the rest of his own rookie campaign before a well-earned winter respite.
"I don't usually go looking at too much stakes racing; I go week to week," Romo said. "I've been in this game a lot of years — you make plans, and then plans don't work out when you're racing young horses. I'll race him a week, and if he comes out good, I'll look at the schedule for the next one."