DRESDEN, ON — When three-year-old trotter White Cliffs makes his Ontario Sires Stakes debut in a Grassroots division at Dresden Raceway on Sunday, trainer Norman Bayne hopes the gelding is having one of his good days.

“He’s been a big pain sometimes,” says Bayne with a chuckle. “But they’ve all got their good days and their bad days.”

White Cliffs has three solid starts under his belt heading into Sunday’s Grassroots contest — a second at Western Fair Raceway on April 28, a third at Clinton Raceway on May 7 and another third at Hiawatha Horse Park on May 20 — but the results tell only part of the gelding’s story.

Warming up for the non-winners event at Clinton on May 7, the Royal Ballad son spotted the finishing wire above the track and spent the rest of the afternoon ducking and diving every time he trotted underneath it.

“He was a pain in the you know what that day. I was pretty near going to scratch him,” says the Rodney resident. “When I went out to go his last mile he just about slid under it on his belly.”

Fortunately White Cliffs was starting from the trailing post, so driver Jim McClure tucked the gelding behind the horse in front of him for their first pass under the fearsome wire, and then made sure he was well to the outside of the rest of the field for the next two encounters.

“He was out pretty near to the grandstand at the finish,” recalls Bayne, who shares ownership on White Cliffs with Bruce McKenty of Waterloo.

In spite of his under wire shenanigans, White Cliffs clocked a 2:03 mile at Clinton and came back with a 2:03.1 effort at Hiawatha two weeks later. In both races White Cliffs sported a pair of trotting hopples, and Bayne thinks the gelding may be capable of even more once the steadying aids are removed from his equipment bag.

“I think he’s a lot better horse once I take the hopples off,” says Bayne. “I train him all the time without them and he trains better than he races. I thought I would let him get a few trips in with them on, let him get used to the company, and then when we get a lay off, two or three weeks between races, I’ll qualify him without the hopples.”

White Cliffs will make his Grassroots debut from Post 3 in the eighth race on Sunday, with Brad Forward in the race bike for the second straight week. The pair will tackle a field of Ontario Sires Stakes veterans, including last year’s Grassroots Champion Deputy Dylan from Post 8.

The other five Grassroots divisions are slated as Races 3, 5, 7, 10 and 11 on Sunday, with Dresden Raceway’s first race parading onto the half-mile oval at 1 pm.

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