Two-year-old pacer Capilano Creek finished second and third in her first two Grassroots starts, so trainer David Brown is hoping it is her turn for a win when the fillies arrive at Sudbury Downs on Wednesday, Aug. 20.
"Hopefully things will work out Wednesday. We like to get our picture taken as well as the next guy," says the Cannington resident, with a chuckle.
Capilano Creek heads into Wednesday's event off a sharp effort in a two-year-old conditioned contest at Mohawk Racetrack on Aug. 14. The daughter of Sir Luck and Sutter Creek hit the wire in fourth, pacing her own mile in 1:55.
"She raced real well last night at Mohawk," says Brown, who shares ownership on the filly with breeders Barry and Debbie Bird of Harwood. "She's progressing along the way we'd like her to."
The half-sister to $262,650 winner Hayser Creek and $187,077 winner Jacks Creek, Brown says Capilano Creek has the same positive attitude as her siblings, a willingness to work hard and go forward.
"She was real good training down. She showed us lots of speed and she always had a real desire to go, you never had to force her to go," recalls Brown. "From what Barry says, the whole family has been like that."
Capilano Creek qualified at Mohawk on June 21, delivering a 1:59.3 win for driver Randy Waples. Waples piloted the filly in her racing debut at Mohawk on June 30, but the filly was well back of the leaders in the brisk 1:56.4 mile. With that lesson under her belt, however, the filly made her second start at Kawartha Downs with Brad Rae in the race bike and toured the five-eighths mile oval in 1:56.3 to score a one length victory.
In the Grassroots season opener on July 14 at Grand River Raceway, Capilano Creek and Rae were a solid second in a 1:58.1 mile, then finished a narrowly beaten third in the July 30 Grassroots battle at Hiawatha Horse Park, reaching the wire a half-length behind the winner in 1:56.4.
"Brad gets along pretty good with her," says Brown. "She looks around at everything, she's so green. When she's warming up she'll get sideways looking at something in the infield, but when she gets in a race, she gets her mind on her game, and she drives straight as an arrow."
Rae will steer the well bred youngster from Post 3 in the seventh race at Sudbury Downs on Wednesday, and Brown expects the pair will get a run for their money from former Grassroots winner Tomorrowpan, who heads into the $20,000 contest off a sixth-place finish in the Robert Stewart Stakes at Mohawk and will start from Post 2.
Most of the other fillies in the third Grassroots split are also veterans of the Grassroots circuit, with just two youngsters making their provincial debut over the Sudbury Downs half-mile.
The freshman fillies will battle for a total of $80,000 in Races 5, 6, 7, and 9 on the Wednesday evening program, which gets under way at 7:15 p.m.
To view Wednesday's entries, click here.
(OSS)