After racing at the top level on the Woodbine-Mohawk circuit for the better part of two seasons and qualifying for the biggest race of his career, popular pacer Piston Broke quietly disappeared from public view.
The last time Piston Broke raced was 15 months ago -- August 28, 2015. He finished a very impressive fourth in his Canadian Pacing Derby elimination, just back of elim winner and eventual CPD champ State Treasurer.
Piston Broke was scratched out of the final one week later as the horse incurred an injury. Trainer and co-owner Rob Fellows told Trot Insider that the now seven-year-old son of Shark Gesture hasn't finished his racing career just yet.
"I gave him the winter off. I started him back and got him ready this spring but he still wasn't right so he's in training," stated Fellows. "I'm going to try to race him again, but I'll make sure he's 100 per cent or I won't bring him back.
"I did qualify him once in the spring and he just wasn't right so I backed off with him a little."
That patience has brought Piston Broke back to a qualifying test on Thursday (Nov. 24) at Woodbine Racetrack.
A cursory glance at Piston Broke's racelines since late 2013 show the Preferred class listed more often than not. The consistent campaigner stashed away nearly $90,000 in each of his three older seasons, boasting multiple victories in WEG's top class and sizzling-fast closing quarters. His 1:48.3 lifetime mark was taken in a July 2014 win at Mohawk with a :25 final panel.
That lethal closing kick, noted Fellows, has been part of Piston Broke's repertoire since he first set foot on the racetrack.
"It's funny, if you look at his very first line he paced a back half in 55 and change. So he always showed that he was a good horse."
While young horses can quite often change their career trajectory despite a trainer's best efforts, Fellows felt for quite some time that Piston Broke could come close to the level of racing achievements of a millionaire that used to have a stall in his stable.
"I look at a horse like him and I trained Hyperion Hanover. Hyperion Hanover made a million dollars racing as a racehorse. Now the purses were twice what they are now but I thought this horse was that calibre of a horse, as long as we could keep him going."
Piston Broke (Shark Gesture - Rebid) is owned by Fellows along with Willard Sabrosky of Madison Heights, Mich. and Arpad Szabo of Bradford, Ont. The trainer credits his co-owners for having the best interests of the horse in mind with respect to the duration of his recovery.
"We gave him all the time he needed...It has to be monitored, and I don't want to bring him back if there's a chance of him really getting hurt.
"I've got good partners with him and my wife and I, we own the majority of him so we can make hopefully what are the right decisions for him."