INNISFIL, ON — Georgian Downs continues an exciting five-week stretch of Ontario Sires Stakes action with four Trillium Series divisions for the two-year-old trotting fillies on Saturday evening.
The deeply talented Ontario-sired fillies will be joined by their American-bred peers for the Trillium Series event and trainer Keith Jones is hoping that Gold Series regular Ima Sweetie Too can deliver a solid effort over her local oval to claim a share of the $73,824 total purse.
“She was good all winter and I had high expectations for her, but I think it might just take her another year. She’s pretty big,” says the Midhurst resident. “She has a lot of ability, she just has to learn how to halter her speed.”
The half-sister to Jones’ superstar trotter Abbey Road C, who will compete on Georgian Downs’ Saturday evening program in an elimination for the Honourable Earl Rowe Memorial Trot, Ima Sweetie Too heads into her Trillium contest off a break in the Sept. 28 Gold Final that Jones attributes to immaturity.
“She was working out a good trip when she just run in front of the grandstand for no particular reason,” says the horseman, who also owns the filly. “She was just being herself, she has a mind of her own.
“But she raced good in the Oakville (Sept. 9), she was coming hard at the end, and she raced good in the Oakville Final (Sept. 15), they just didn’t go enough on the front,” he adds.
Jones will pilot Ima Sweetie Too from Post 4 in the first Trillium division and says the filly’s performance against a field that includes Gold and Grassroots Series regulars, as well as a pair of American-breds, will determine her future.
“If she races well I’ll continue with her until she tells me otherwise, but if she doesn’t race well I’ll quit with her,” he explains. �I think she’ll make a good three-year-old.”
Jones’ belief that Ima Sweetie Too will improve with age is rooted in experience. Her big brother Abbey Road C was a late bloomer who earned just $60,554 of his career $685,510 as a two-year-old.
Among the other top fillies Georgian Downs fans will catch in Trillium action are former Gold Final winner Flirting Lavec, who will start from Post 8 in the seventh race, facing off against Gold Series regular Sno Doubt About It from Post 7 and tough Pennsylvania Sires Stakes filly Blossom Seelster from Post 3.
Georgian Downs’ first race parades onto the five-eighths mile oval at 7:30 on Saturday and the two-year-old trotting fillies will warm up the October evening in Races 2, 5, 7, and 8.