Heading into Saturday's Trillium Series event at Georgian Downs, two-year-old trotting filly Lunar Stream is looking to expand her education and gain some confidence in her ability.
The daughter of Kadabra and $147,027 winner Limitless Sky has been steady and consistent through her first seven starts, but so far all she has to show for her efforts is a third-place finish in an August 23 Gold consolation at Kawartha Downs.
"She is a pretty sensible, good gaited filly," says trainer John Bax, who conditions Lunar Stream for breeders Al Libfeld of Pickering, ON and Marvin Katz of Toronto, ON. "She's just got to learn. Hopefully the breeding will manifest itself somewhere down the line."
After a July 5 qualifier at Mohawk Racetrack, Lunar Stream made one overnight start at Kawartha Downs where she finished sixth, then jumped into the Gold Series program. A sixth in the July 28 elimination at Mohawk was not enough to advance the filly into the Gold final, so she returned to Kawartha for a second overnight, earning her first cheque with a solid fifth-place effort.
Back in the Gold Series the young trotter finished fourth in her elimination over the Kawartha oval, and then closed well to claim third in the consolation. On September 1 the filly tried her hand against North America's best in the Champlain Stakes, and finished well back of winner Seaside, who stopped the Mohawk teletimer at 1:56.1.
Off that effort, Bax decided to try another overnight at Kawartha in an effort to rebuild Lunar Stream's confidence, but things did not work out quite as he had hoped.
"I raced her in an overnight last Saturday (September 13) and she finished fourth. The race didn't work out too well. The one horse was a runaway and we were second, so we were cutting our own mile," recalls the Peterborough, ON resident. "I was disappointed with the way the race worked out. I was hoping they'd go slow enough so she could learn something."
With just two Gold events and two Grassroots events remaining on the freshman trotting filly calendar, Bax does not expect Lunar Stream's season to extend into beyond October, so he has already shifted his focus to next year.
"She hasn't shown she can go with the best," he explains. "So I am leaning toward dropping her into the Grassroots and letting her build up some confidence, and hope for next year she'll develop into a Gold horse.
"We are sort of sacrificing this year in return for making her into a better horse for next year."
However, while his sights are set on the horizon, the horseman would be delighted to see Lunar Stream deliver a strong effort in Saturday's Trillium Series, which gets underway at 7:25 p.m. over the Georgian Downs oval.
(OSS)