Seven of Ontario’s finest two-year-old pacing colts are headed to Kawartha Downs on Saturday evening to compete for a Gold Final title and a share of the biggest purse the Fraserville oval has ever offered.
A cool $180,000 is up for grabs in the seventh race, and trainer Chadwick Schmiedge is hoping Surrealist can just keep doing what he has done in each of his first five starts.
“He’s a pretty nice little horse. He tries for all he’s got, and he’s got good gate speed,” says the Waterdown resident. “He’s done everything we’ve asked and more.
“I’d like to say I made him, but he’s made himself. He’s just a nice horse,” adds the trainer. “Everybody likes to take credit, but I can’t, he just does his thing.”
Just doing his thing has landed the Modern Art son a 1:56.1 win his Aug. 21 career debut at Flamboro Downs, a second in a two-year-old overnight event at Mohawk Racetrack on Aug. 31 and a third in the same class one week later. The colt then made a successful leap into the Gold Series with a third-place finish behind division leader Nebupanezzar in the Sept. 20 Gold Elimination at Mohawk. Scratched out of the Gold Final after missing the retention cut off, Surrealist returned to Mohawk last Sunday (Oct. 5) and was second by a half-length in a 1:52.2 freshman conditioned event.
“He’s really just coming into himself I think,” reflects Schmiedge, who conditions the colt for owner Gregory Martin of Calgary, AB. “He’s a really good feeling horse. He’s really not very big, but he struts around like he’s 10 feet tall. He’s pretty proud of himself.”
Anthony MacDonald will steer Surrealist after a share of the lucrative Gold Final purse from Post 4 on Saturday, and Schmiedge says the colt will not require much work to prepare for the Gold Final off Sunday’s sharp race.
“We really don’t do much with him. He wears no boots, no poles, he just goes out and does his thing,” says the horseman. “He just raced Sunday so he won’t train this week, maybe just a light single, we’ll just throw him on the truck and bring him down.”
The third-place finish Surrealist posted in his Gold Series debut gives him 12 points, which is 18 shy of the current cut off for a berth in the season ending Super Final. Schmiedge would love to see the young pacer earn his way into the top 10, and thinks the schedule may work to his advantage. After Saturday’s skirmish over Kawartha’s five-eighths mile oval, the two-year-old pacing colts wrap up their regular season on Western Fair Raceway’s half-mile track in early November.
“I think he’s going to get around a half or a five-eighths every bit as good as the big track,” explains Schmiedge. “Hopefully he can get enough points. It would be real nice to make the Super Final.”
Of the colts currently ranked in the top 10, only OK Boromir will make the trip to Kawartha Downs on Saturday, leaving the door wide open for the colts hovering near the cut off mark to make a significant leap up the standings. OK Boromir will be looking to add to the 87 points he has accumulated through the first three Gold Series events from Post 5.
Kawartha Downs raises the curtain on a lucrative Saturday night of racing at 7 p.m., and all eyes will be on the freshman pacing colts in Race 7.
To view Kawartha’s entries, click here.
(OSS)