BELLEVILLE, ON — Quinte Raceway wraps up an exciting weekend of Ontario Sires Stakes action on Canada Day with five Grassroots divisions for the two-year-old pacing colts.
The colts are making their provincial debut and many of them will arrive for Monday’s contest fresh out of an early season qualifier. Among the youngsters with a more extensive resume is Emersons Ahh Jewel, who heads into the sixth race off an impressive outing at Kawartha Downs on June 20.
The Armbro Emerson colt qualified once at Kawartha on June 13 and logged a second-place finish in 2:00. One week later trainer Timothy Gillespie put the colt’s nose on the gate in a maiden event and Emersons Ahh Jewel delivered a sharp 1:57.3 mile to finish third by two and half lengths.
“In the last six weeks he’s really went on,” says Gillespie, who trains Emersons Ahh Jewel for owner-breeder Len Kordy of Picton. “I’m pretty happy with him right now.”
The colt will take a run at the $21,804 purse in the sixth race from Post 3 and Gillespie expects to see driver Mark Megens making an early move to the front on the half-mile oval. It will be Megens’s first tour behind the young pacer, but Gillespie is confident the driver change will not make any difference to Emersons Ahh Jewel.
“He’ll be all right, he’s extremely easy to drive,” says the Grafton resident. “And I think he’s going to do his best racing on the half mile. He’s not very big and he’s very good gaited.”
Another youngster with some racing experience already under his belt hails from Edward Thompson’s Stirling barn. Bo Scootin Boogie has a trio of qualifiers and two maiden matches to his credit, getting an early start to his freshman campaign.
John Thomson will pilot the Bo Knows Jate colt from Post 6 in the third race on Quinte’s 1:30 pm program this Monday. Thomson drove Bo Scootin Boogie to a 2:00.2 fourth-place finish in a June 22 qualifier, his best performance in his young career.
Quinte Raceway’s Canada Day matinee gets under way at 1:30 pm and the freshman pacing colts will flex their fledgling muscles in Races 2, 3, 5, 6, and 8.