CLINTON, ON — Ontario’s lightning fast three-year-old pacing colts will dish up a full serving of speed at Clinton Raceway on Sunday afternoon as they battle for a total of $150,000 in Grassroots purses.

Hoping to earn a share of the provincial riches are a pair of colts trained by Clinton resident George McClure — Fit For Victory and Live For Today. Fit For Victory will benefit from Post 1 in the first Grassroots division and Live For Today will be looking for his fifth win of the season from Post 6 in the fourth race.

“The right one got it [Post 1],” says McClure. “The other guy likes to come from behind anyway.”

Bruce Richardson will steer both colts and the reinsman would love to improve on the sixth place finish Fit For Victory logged in the Grassroots season opener at Western Fair Raceway on June 18. Through 18 starts since the Fit For Life son made his racing debut last November, Richardson has guided the gelding to one win, four seconds, five thirds and earnings of $17,550.

“He’s tough. He’s not as fast as the other fellow, but he’s tough,” says McClure of Fit For Victory, who was bred and is owned by his wife Catherine McClure. “He was the best one training down. The other one, once he started racing he decided he liked it after all.”

McClure admits that Fit For Victory was so much better than his stablemate as a two-year-old, that Live For Today came within a pause of missing out entirely on an Ontario Sires Stakes career.

“Carman (Hastie) called and asked, �Should I pay him up?’ He says there was a long pause and then it was, �I guess so,'” recalls the horseman. “He wasn’t very good. It took until his second time behind the gate before he woke up.”

Elmwood resident Carman Hastie bred Live For Today, and McClure’s wife Catherine and son Dustin purchased a share of the gelding before the start of his two-year-old season. Once the son of Fit For Life and 100 per cent producer Marian Seelster gained some enthusiasm for the racing game, he went on to a 12 race season that saw him win one Grassroots event, and finish second in his Grassroots Semifinal and fifth in the $100,000 Final.

This season Live For Today has amassed an impressive record of four wins and four seconds in 10 starts. He has not finished worse than second since April 6 and was just edged into second by a neck in the Grassroots season opener.

The gelding will be looking to add to his Grassroots point total on Sunday, with an eye to securing another berth in the lucrative post season. He faces five Grassroots veterans in Race 4, including one of five entries from Clinton resident Paul Taylor’s stable. Gunsmoke VMW will start from the advantageous Post 1 for Taylor and owner VMW Stables JV of London.

Fit For Victory and his peers will kick Clinton Raceway’s Sunday afternoon program off in the first race at 1:30 pm, with the other 67 colts battling in Races 3 through 6 and 8 through 12.

For complete entries please go to:

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