DUNDAS, ON — When the three-year-old trotting colts line up behind the gate at Flamboro Downs on Sunday evening, Brantford resident Lowell Brown expects Trudel to deliver the kind of steady performance that has landed him in three of four stake finals this season.
“He’s been pretty steady all year,” says Brown. “I don’t know what he’s going to be like on a half-mile track, he hasn’t raced on one since last October when he was in the Grassroots Final at Western Fair and finished fifth, just beat two lengths for it all from the seven-hole.
“He trains on a half mile so I figure he can do the turns, it’s just how much he can do the four turns.”
Through nine starts this season Trudel has amassed a record of one win, two seconds and two thirds for earnings of $43,496. The only blemish on the gelding’s 2004 record came in the July 26 Gold Eliminations at Woodbine Racetrack where he made an early break which caused Brown to reconsider the decision to remove the trotting hopples from the Mr Lavec son’s equipment bag.
“He can trot as fast with or without the hopples, but he’s got about 5 per cent more with the security of the hopples at the start,” says Brown, who shares ownership on the gelding with fellow Brantford residents Gerald Walsh and Howard Staats. “When he made that break I thought I’d put the hopples back on. He wore them last year.”
Trudel prepped for Sunday’s event in a non-winners of three races event at Woodbine Racetrack on Aug. 9 where he finished second by a length in the 1:56.2 mile. The young trotter will be looking to advance to the Gold Final from Post 4 in the first of two $51,084 eliminations on Sunday’s program.
“If he gets in the top four I’ll be happy,” says Brown. “He’s in with tough company, that In Conchnito (Post 6) is a real nice horse. I don’t know how much gate speed he’s got from the six-hole, but I guess we’ll find out Sunday.”
Regular reinsman Jody Jamieson will steer Trudel on Sunday and Brown says the young driver has been instrumental in the gelding’s success both last season and through his sophomore campaign.
“Jody has been driving him all along and he gets along good with him,” says the conditioner. “Jody knows how to use him and how to keep him quiet before he goes to the gate. He can get a little rammy.”
Flamboro Downs’s first race swings in behind the starting gate at 6:20 pm Sunday and Trudel and his peers star in the fourth and ninth races. The top four finishers from each elimination will return to the Dundas oval on Aug. 22 for their fourth $130,000 Gold Final, part of the rich Confederation Cup program.