SARNIA, ON — Ontario’s top three-year-old trotting fillies make their way to Hiawatha Horse Park on Saturday night for the second of six Grassroots events on their 2002 schedule.
Six divisions of fillies will compete for almost $94,000 in Ontario Sires Stakes purse money and trainer Wayne Bloomfield hopes that Slabtown Boots can acquire a larger share than she did in the Grassroots season opener at Quinte Raceway on May 20.
The petite filly was interfered with twice during her 2002 debut and could only manage to salvage a fifth-place finish out of the chaos. Since then she has one second, two thirds and one fifth from four starts and Bloomfield is hoping for good things when she starts from Post 3 in the fourth race on Saturday night.
“She can leave or she can come from off the pace. I just hope she does good,” says the Kerwood resident. “She’s a nice little horse, she just goes out there and tries to do her job, and has right from the start.”
Breeders Slabtown Farm of Croton and Allister Webster of Wyoming own Slabtown Boots, who was a Grassroots Semifinalist at two and ended the season in twelfth spot in the Ontario Sires Stakes standings with earnings of $43,626.
“In the Semifinal last year she got locked in and had nowhere to go, otherwise she probably would have advanced (to $100,000 Final) I think,” recalls Bloomfield. “She never made many mistakes and that’s a big plus with a two-year-old.”
Slabtown Boots trotted in 2:01.4 around Hiawatha’s five-eighths oval in her last start, but Bloomfield thinks her best races are ahead of her when the Grassroots circuit moves to the half-mile ovals in Elmira and Woodstock.
“She’s just a little thing, only 14.1 or 14.2 hands,” he says, “So the smaller track is probably better for her than the bigger track. She’s not bad on a bigger track, but the bigger horses probably go a little further.”
A solid showing on Saturday night would jump Slabtown Boots up the Grassroots point standing and move her closer to a second post season berth. Among the fillies she will face in the fourth race is former Gold Series starter Athens, who will start from Post 9 for Kathy Cecchin of Arthur and Steve Stewart of Paris, KY.
Hiawatha Horse Park will showcase the three-year-old trotting fillies in Races 1, 2, 4,6, 8, and 10 with the first division rolling postward at 7:10 pm.