DUNDAS, ON — When the three-year-old trotting fillies arrive at Flamboro Downs on Sunday evening for their second last Gold Series event, division leader For The Luva Moni will be looking for her third straight victory and the eighth win in an 11-race season that has yet to see her finish out of the top three.
The Balanced Image daughter heads into Sunday’s battle off victories in the elimination and final of the Standardbred Breeders and Owners Association (SBOA) Stake at Mohawk Racetrack, and trainer Dr. John Hayes feels the filly has finally regained the form she displayed before a bout of illness left her on the sidelines for a month early in the summer.
“I think she is getting better,” says the Beamsville resident. “After she was sick, for whatever reason, there were gaps that I think she is starting to fill in.”
After sweeping the elimination and final of the Gold Series season opener, For The Luva Moni finished third in a division of the Colonial Lady and then captured her Elegantimage elimination and was one of the favourites heading into the $607,300 Final before she fell victim to the equine flu. After four weeks of recovery she swept the elimination and final of the Canadian Breeders and then finished second in her elimination and the final of the August Gold Series and in a division of the Sept. 4 Simcoe Stakes.
A three and a half week break before the SBOA Stake gave the filly an opportunity to rest and regain more of her strength and Hayes is pleased with her physical condition heading into the home stretch of the Ontario Sires Stakes season.
“She’s only had 11 starts, and in any of the divisions I think 11 starts is reasonably under-raced,” notes the veteran horseman, who shares ownership on For The Luva Moni with longtime partner Ned Gvoich of Beamsville and Kim Kaplan of Worcester, MA. “She carries her weight very well, she’s an eating son-of-a-gun and she gets her head down on grass virtually every day. And now that the weather is cooler the body doesn’t pay quite the price it does when it is hot and humid .”
With regular reinsman Trevor Ritchie tied up in Lexington, KY for the weekend, Doug Brown will steer For The Luva Moni from Post 3 in the fifth race and Hayes does not expect the driver change to have any effect on the winner of $476,266.
“I think I could get my license back and she could overcome me,” he says. “As long as there is somebody to chase, she’ll keep going.”
Among the other division stars heading to Flamboro Downs on Sunday is reigning Gold Final winner Queen Of Jewels, who starts from Post 3 in the first Gold Elimination and will be attempting to rebound from a disappointing sixth-place finish in the SBOA Final.
Flamboro’s first race goes postward at 6:20 pm on Sunday and the three-year-old trotting fillies will fire things up in Races 2, 5, and 8. The top three finishers from each elimination will return to the Dundas oval on Sunday, Oct. 5 for the second last $130,000 Gold Final of their careers.