CAMPBELLVILLE, ON — Ontario’s talented three-year-old trotting fillies return to Mohawk Racetrack on Thursday evening for their third Ontario Sires Stakes Gold Final, and Pat Hunt is hoping World Class Image can match her winning elimination effort.
The Balanced Image miss clocked a personal best 1:55.2 last week, sailing across the finishing line six and three-quarter lengths ahead of the competition. World Class Image and driver Randy Waples will make their bid for a second straight victory from Post 8 in Thursday’s fifth race, but Hunt is unconcerned about the outside post.
“I don’t mind it so much. She’s been drawing fairly good and you can’t draw good every week,” says the Cambridge resident. “I think she can come off the gate to get positioned wherever he wants to put her; it’s not a reason for her to get beat.”
Thursday’s outing is just the filly’s fifth start of the season after a lung virus delayed the start of her sophomore season by two months. Getting ready for the Gold Series season opener in May, Hunt detected a trace of a cold in World Class Image and several of her stablemates. Further investigation revealed a serious virus that had Hunt worried about the young trotter’s future.
“We had her all ready and we got a bad lung virus. When it gets in their lungs, you just don’t know how it’s going to come out. You don’t know how well they’re going to come back,” says Hunt, who trains the regally bred daughter of super sire Balanced Image and $484,208 winner Gramola for Thomas and Elizabeth Rankin of St. Catharines. “I was pretty cautious those first few starts.”
After a lengthy recovery, World Class Image qualified at Mohawk on June 28, delivering a winning effort in 2:01.1. Her first start came in a July 14 overnight at the Campbellville oval that saw her finish third over a sloppy track rated two seconds slower than normal.
From there she finished second in her Canadian Breeders Championship elimination on July 22 and then threw in a clunker in the July 30 Final, finishing fifth after carving out all the fractions and looking poised for victory at the top of the stretch.
“We had the vet check her all over, she had no temperature, everything looked fine. Maybe just the wrong time of the month, but that’s just a guess too,” says the veteran horseman. ” Retention I don’t like, and she didn’t eat or drink — well she ate some but she didn’t drink at all — in retention, but I can’t say for sure that’s what it was either. They all have their bad days, and right now I’m just putting it off to a bad day.”
The fillies are back in the retention barn on Thursday, but Hunt is hoping World Class Image will find her second sleep over easier than the first and can pick up a Gold Final trophy to match the one she earned as a two-year-old.
“You never know, but we’ve got our fingers and toes crossed,” he says with a chuckle.
World Class Image and Randy Waples face a tough field of rivals in their quest for a second straight win, including the other elimination winners Whatthehecklavec and Fan Favourite, who will start from Posts 1 and 6.
Mohawk Racetrack sends its first race behind the starting gate at 7:20 pm on Thursday, with the three-year-old trotting fillies taking their shot at Ontario Sires Stakes Gold in Race 5.
For a complete list of entries please go to:
http://www.standardbredcanada.ca/entries/data/emohsth.html#N5