FRASERVILLE, ON — After a less than impressive two-year-old campaign and a lacklustre start to his three-year-old season, Doug Brown and Richard Thomas had pretty much given up on pacing colt Northern Edge. However, a 1:56.1 mile in a June 11 event at Kawartha Downs marked the start of a transformation that has been just shy of miraculous and has led the pacer to a berth in Tuesday’s Grassroots event at his hometown oval.

“He’s been a very pleasant surprise. You can see from his lines, last year he was pretty mediocre,” says Brown. “I don’t know what changed in him, but he’s really come around the last six to eight weeks.”

That fourth-place finish in June marked the first time the Northern Luck son had ever broken the two minute barrier. Since then the gelding has logged three wins and two seconds, including a runner-up finish in his Grassroots debut at Quinte Exhibition Raceway on July 15 that saw him overcome interference at the top of the stretch to post the fastest last quarter of any horse in the eight Grassroots divisions.

“He had the six-hole at Belleville and Wayne (Dowson) said if he could have got out he would have won it,” notes Brown, who trains the colt for Post Hope resident Thomas He shows a :28.1 last quarter over that track; Wayne said the bike was sliding around the last turn.”

While Brown is uncertain about what precisely caused the gelding’s remarkable turn around, he is confident about what is currently working for the moody youngster.

“He grew up a little, but the biggest change in him is his attitude. As a two-year-old it was as if he didn’t like anything,” says the Bowmanville resident. “So we changed his routine this year. He only sees the harness once a week to train one trip and then he goes right back in the field. That really helped. He seems to like being outside. He’s out from 7 am to noon, then he’s in for the rest of the day, but when he goes out he doesn’t stop. He just plays nonstop.”

Brown will steer Northern Edge himself on Tuesday and the pair have drawn Post 7 in the first race, landing on the outside half of the starting gate for the third straight week.

“It all depends on how the race sets up, but he has raced so well the last three or four weeks — he came from last to win last week (July 30) — post position’s not going to matter a great deal,” says Brown. “I haven’t looked at a sheet, but if there is lots of early speed that will certainly help him.”

Regardless of how things work out for Northern Edge on Tuesday, Brown and Thomas are looking forward to racing the pacer in an Ontario Sires Stakes event at their local oval.

“I’m just so happy for the owner. He’s a really good guy,” says Brown. “He owns him all himself and he didn’t see much return on his investment last year. He’s been very patient with him and with us.”

“We never imagined we’d be racing in a Grassroots, let alone getting any money,” adds the veteran horseman. “Last year, as I said, he was pretty ordinary.”

Among the colts Northern Edge will face in his second Ontario Sires Stakes start are two-time Grassroots winner Twilight Baron from Post 2 and Canuck Luck, who boasts a record of eight wins and one second in 10 starts and will make his 2005 Grassroots debut from Post 9.

Ontario’s talented three-year-old pacing colts have commandeered all but Race 11 on Kawartha Downs’s Tuesday evening program. Northern Edge and his rivals in the first division will kick things off at 4 pm.

For a complete list of entries please go to:

http://www.standardbredcanada.ca/entries/data/ekdftu.html