CAMPBELLVILLE, ON — Ontario’s talented three-year-old pacing colts are heading back to Mohawk Racetrack on Monday evening for their third $130,000 Gold Final and, despite drawing outside for the second straight week, Noble Jake is being touted as the early favourite.

“I think he’s the best horse,” says the gelding’s driver Chris Christoforou, Jr. “I believe he can take a curve ball somewhere in the mile and still get the job done.”

Noble Jake has proved Christoforou right in both of his last two starts. In last week’s elimination he started from Post 9, was parked through the entire mile and still managed to hit the wire a nose in front in 1:51.2. One week earlier he made an inexplicable miscue heading to the quarter-pole, came back pacing on the outside and finished two and a half lengths ahead of the competition. A judges review of the race saw the gelding set back to ninth for interference while he was on the break, but that does not change the impressive nature of the effort.

“I think he’s one of the best horses I have ever sat behind,” says Christoforou, who also drove the young pacer’s sire Astreos. “He’s got a lot to prove, but he has all the signs.

“He has the same long, fluid gait. He covers a lot of ground quick. You have to be careful when you’re rating him in a mile because he’ll be going a lot faster than you think,” adds the Campbellville resident. “And he’s very determined, like Astreos. He seems like the kind of horse, if it came down to a fight to the finish, he’d give you everything he’s got.”

Trained by Christoforou’s father Chris, Sr. of Campbellville for his partner Banjo Farms of Toronto, Noble Jake did not race as a two-year-old and has just 10 starts under his belt at the halfway point in the stakes season.

“He’s very limited in his starts at this stage in his career and that helps him quite a bit,” notes the driver. “He’s not sour. He’s just starting to come into his own.”

The driver admits that he has been pleasantly surprised at Noble Jake’s progress this season, which has seen the gelding net five wins, two seconds and two thirds and earnings of $142,940.

“The only one that had any real faith in him from the beginning was my father,” recalls Christoforou. “I didn’t sit behind him until he qualified as a two-year-old and he didn’t show much raw speed or real endurance, but as he progressed as a three-year-old he really started to show quite a bit of both.”

Noble Jake’s stamina has impressed Christoforou a great deal in his recent starts and given the reinsman an unwavering faith in the horse’s ability to handle those curve balls.

“This is one of those classes, there are a lot of powerful horses in there that can race any way,” he notes. “But if I have to use him leaving I won’t hesitate.”

Christoforou will test Noble’s Jake’s speed and endurance against nine rivals in the seventh race on Monday’s program, which gets under way at 7:20 pm. In addition to the three-year-old pacing colts, Mohawk Racetrack fans will also be entertained by the two-year-old pacing fillies in one Robert Stewart Stake division, scheduled as Race 5.

For a complete list of entries please go to:

http://www.standardbredcanada.ca/entries/data/emohsmo.html#N7