WINDSOR, ON — When the three-year-old pacing fillies make their last Gold Elimination stop at Windsor Raceway Saturday evening the field will include three fillies making their Gold Series debut. And while it is not unusual to see horses jump up to the Gold Series at this stage in the season, it is rare when one of them boasts lifetime earnings of $1.17 million.
“It’s amazing that she’s never made a start in the Sires Stakes,” says trainer Bob McIntosh of the talented Remember When. “And, that she’s made over $1 million, and never raced in the Sires Stakes.”
Rather than face her Ontario-sired peers in the provincial program, the Camluck daughter has been battling the top fillies in North America for the last two seasons. As a two-year-old she captured an elimination and the final of the Whenuwishuponastar Stake, the She’s A Great Lady Final and a Breeders Crown Elimination at Woodbine Racetrack and a division of the Harvest Stake at Mohawk Racetrack. This season she has recorded victories in a division of the Tarport Hap and a Mistletoe Shalee Elimination at The Meadowlands, the Fan Hanover Final at Woodbine, a Nadia Lobell Elimination at the Red Mile and heads into Saturday’s contest off a win in the Lady Maud Stake at The Meadows.
“George Segal wanted to race her that way and it’s worked out very well,” says McIntosh, who trains the filly for Segal’s Brittany Farms of Versailles, KY. “I think she’ll fit in pretty good here — Burning Point is tough, of course — but she’s raced against the best.”
A blue-blooded member of the Brittany Farms breeding program, Remember When is a daughter of Best Of Memories, whose mother Leah Almahurst earned $1 million in her racing career and then went on to produce a small group of outstanding racehorses including Make A Deal ($610,249) and Western Ideal ($1,455,422).
Trevor Ritchie will guide the gifted pacer from Post 1 in the first of two $58,844 Gold Eliminations on Saturday and will be looking to halt Burning Point’s current win streak at five. The reigning Gold Final champion, trained by Windsor’s Linda Wallis and driven by Kevin Wallis, will start from Post 4 in Race 7.
In the second elimination Please Me Please carries the McIntosh Stable flag from Post 2 and will be looking to avenge the narrow loss she suffered in a Trillium Series division at Windsor Raceway on Oct. 12. Another daughter of Camluck, Please Me Please will start from Post 2 in the ninth race and will be looking for her fourth victory of the season.
“She’s been very good lately. She’s put together a good year,” says the La Salle resident, who owns the filly in partnership with Al McIntosh Holdings Inc. of Leamington and Dwight Stacey of Mitchell. “She’s been — not really a surprise, she was good last year — but a really nice filly to race this year.”
Please Me Please is a second generation member of the McIntosh breeding program, which makes her success all the more enjoyable for the partners.
“We raised her mother (Artistic Pleasure), we raised her and I raced her father,” says the veteran horseman. “And I raced her dam’s sire too, Artsplace.”
Among the fillies Please Me Please and regular reinsman Mike Saftic will face Saturday is their Trillium nemesis Jasper Avenue from Post 1.
Both the McIntosh fillies will be looking for a top four finish to secure a berth in the Nov. 1 Gold Final, although one fifth-place finisher will also draw into the $130,000 contest.
Windsor Raceway’s first race heads onto the five-eighths mile oval at 7:25 pm on Saturday evening and the three-year-old pacing fillies will battle in Races 7 and 9.