Ontario’s talented two-year-old pacers storm back into Ottawa on Sunday for two $130,000 Gold Series Finals.
Elimination winner Right On Molly will be looking for her third straight victory from Post 3 in Rideau Carleton Raceway’s fourth race and trainer Otis Hall is hoping the filly continues to demonstrate the same even-tempered, positive attitude that propelled her to victory in the July 1 Grassroots opener at Mohawk Racetrack and in last week’s Gold Elimination.
“She’s always been very good to work with,” says the horseman, who shares ownership of the filly with his father Larry Hall’s Sauble Hill Farms of Tara. “She has a great attitude — she likes her work and she tries hard.”
In both the Grassroots start and last week’s Gold Elimination, driver Jody Jamieson sat mid-pack for much of the mile, sending Right On Molly after the lead in the final quarter. The Stonebridge Regal daughter hit the wire one and three-quarter lengths on top in her debut, halting the Mohawk teletimer at 1:55.2, and was a two and one-half length winner in her Gold Elimination with a 1:55 effort.
The filly, who was a $5,000 purchase from the 2011 Forest City Yearling Sale, came out of her first Gold Series test in fine fettle and Hall is expecting another steady effort from the youngster in Sunday’s fourth race.
“She’s having a good week,” says the Ayr resident. “We went to Ottawa and we stayed overnight and you never know how they are going to handle it, sometimes they go off their feed, but she handled it well.”
Pacing colt elimination winner Mach Pride also handled the trip to the nation’s capital with aplomb. Trainer Louie Eftimiadis says the Mach Three colt has been a model student since he arrived in Ontario in mid-June and is looking forward to the return trip to Rideau Carleton, where he will make a bid for a Gold Final title from Post 4 in the seventh race.
“He’s a sweetheart. I actually call him Perry, for Perry Como, because he’s still a stud, and he’s just very relaxed, he’s very relaxed,” says Eftimiadis. “When he jogs, every once in a while he might just get the Mach in him that kind of snaps his head and he goes for a half-mile or whatever as fast as he wants to go, but that’s about it, the rest of the time he’s nice and quiet. He’s great in the barn, he actually ships well, he doesn’t care about the fillies yet, he’s very, I don’t know, I guess you want to call it very professional.”
Mach Pride and driver Anthony MacDonald controlled the pace from start to finish in last Sunday’s elimination, cruising to a one and one-quarter length victory in 1:53. Last week’s Gold Elimination trophy was the second the colt has earned for owner Gerald Mijal of Westland, MI, he was also victorious in the June 29 season opener at Mohawk. Starting from Post 9 Mach Pride finished third in the July 6 Gold Final and Eftimiadis would like to see him improve on that this weekend.
“The final in the nine-hole was not a happy spot,” says the Newmarket resident ruefully. “He still raced really good, he got into a little bit of road problems late in the mile and he veered off the course right at the wire and that might have cost him a second-place finish too, but he’s consistent, he’s a nice boy.”
Eftimiadis and Mijal campaigned the colt’s half-sister Montenegro to earnings of $147,980 in her two and three-year-old seasons, and after enjoying the filly’s success Mijal purchased Mach Pride as a weanling. The colt trained down south of the border and shipped north after his first start at Ohio’s Raceway Park on June 10. The colt won that start and finished second in a prep race at Mohawk Racetrack on June 22 for a record of three wins, one second and one third in five starts, for earnings of $61,000.
The long-legged youngster will be looking to notch a fourth victory on Sunday, facing the same group of colts that battled in last week’s single elimination.
Rideau Carleton Raceway’s Sunday evening program begins at 6:30 pm, with the two-year-old pacing fillies battling for $130,000 in Race 4 and the two-year-old pacing colts competing for their Gold Final title in Race 7.
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To view entries for Sunday's card of harness racing, click the following link: Sunday Entries – Rideau Carleton Raceway.