CAMPBELLVILLE, ON — Mohawk Racetrack hosts its annual Victoria Day fireworks extravaganza this Sunday, with a nine race program beginning at 6:35 pm and wrapping up just in time for the spectacular light show.
Highlighting the racing program are a pair of $130,000 Gold Series Finals featuring 20 of the finest trotting colts and fillies ever bred in Ontario. Among the talented group of three-year-old trotters is local favourite Kings Ransom, trained by Campbellville resident Susanne Kerwood for Ed Radin of Kitchener. The King Conch son captured his Gold Elimination last weekend and the trainer says he is in fine fettle heading into Sunday’s battle.
“He came out of the race real good. It worked out perfectly for us. I was pretty happy we didn’t have to go any more than 1:59.1, because I knew he’d be race short,” says Kerwood. “But he still trotted a back half in :58 flat, and none of the other races came home that fast.”
Kerwood’s concern that the colt would not be at his best for the Gold Elimination stemmed from a minor injury he suffered in the April 26 Tie Silk Series Final at Mohawk. Pressed into a tight space on the rail driver Mike Saftic took a hold of Kings Ransom and the lightly raced colt responded by making a break, injuring one foot in the process.
“It was a bit of a battle. I didn’t think he’d be ready for the first Gold, but he’s a quick healer,” says Kerwood, who concentrates on training trotters. “I couldn’t train him as much as I’d have liked to so I knew he was going to be short.”
Kerwood has been developing the gelding since his two-year-old season, when she and Radin liked what they saw enough to back off and give the youngster time to mature.
“I started to train him down and I really liked him so I trained him down to about 2:20 and then we turned him out,” she explains. “We’ve babied him from Day 1. Maybe sometimes a little too much, but hopefully it will pay off in the long run. I think he’ll be a real nice colt later in the year.”
With just four starts under his belt, Kings Ransom is the least experienced of the 10 trotting colts who will go to the post in Race 9 on Sunday, but in those four starts the gelding has already made three trips to the Mohawk winner’s circle and Roger Mayotte will attempt to make it four from Post 5.
“It will be the first time Roger is going to be sitting behind him,” says Kerwood. “I would like to see him race from off the pace. He really likes to chase them and I think if you leave with him too many times he could get a little hot on you, just because of his breeding — that King Conch-Balanced Image cross.”
The other two elimination winners, Coventry and Witness Perfection, will start from Posts 3 and 4 and Kerwood says she also expects a big mile from Grand Sovereign, who will start from Post 6.
The fillies lead off the lucrative evening of Ontario Sires Stakes events in Race 5 and if the weather cooperates fans could see another record setting mile from the deeply talented division.
In Monday’s elimination round Miss Michelle H equalled the Ontario Sires Stakes record set by the great Elegantimage in 1997, cruising across the wire in 1:55.4. Another King Conch offspring, Miss Michelle H will be hampered by Post 10 in Sunday’s Final while the other two elimination winners, Zorgwijk Emani and Sand Box Sammy, enjoy Posts 2 and 3.
In addition to the exciting Gold Finals in Race 5 and 9, Mohawk Racetrack fans will be entertained by three divisions of the Billings Amateur Driving Championship in the first three races on the 6:35 pm program.