GLOUCESTER, ON — Rideau Carleton Raceway fans will be in for a treat on Thursday as the long awaited match up between top three-year-old trotting fillies Peaceful Way and McCall Magic occurs in the second of two Gold Series Eliminations.
Freshman champion and $1.19 million winner Peaceful Way will start from Post 5 in the $49,681 contest, while reigning division queen McCall Magic gets the advantageous Post 1. McCall Magic heads into the battle on a three race win streak in a season that has seen her set three stakes records while posting six wins and two seconds in 11 starts. Peaceful Way returns to Ontario from an extended stay at The Meadowlands in New Jersey where she captured three of four races, including an outstanding 1:52.3 mile in the Delvin Miller Memorial Final on July 16.
Breathing a sigh of relief at drawing away from the division’s bear cats for this round is local favourite Ifhallscouldtalk, who will start from Post 3 in the third race.
“Any time you can miss those two fillies it’s a bonus,” says Rene Laarman, who trains Ifhallscouldtalk for Ottawa’s Melvin Hartman. “Although the other fillies we’re in with are tough fillies too.”
While battling allergies through the peak of the summer season, Ifhallscouldtalk has amassed an impressive resume of her own. The Angus Hall daughter achieved a track record in a division of the Casual Breeze at Mohawk Racetrack on June 4 and has three seconds and three thirds to go along with that victory, for earnings of $96,249.
Laarman hopes that as the weather cools and allergy season passes the filly can round into the kind of form that carried her to earnings of $286,775 at two.
“I’m hoping these allergies settle down in the fall again,” says the Guelph resident. “She’s a pretty nice filly, no doubt about it. We’re just hoping she can last the season and see what happens.”
Regular reinsman Trevor Ritchie will make the trip to Ottawa to drive Ifhallscouldtalk and Laarman expects a significant improvement over the pair’s effort in the Aug. 13 Final at Flamboro Downs where the filly made a break and finished well behind the field.
“She’s not a half-mile track horse, that’s for sure,” he says. “She’s usually fairly versatile. You can do what you want with her off the gate.”
After the Final Laarman opted to give the filly a mini-vacation and she spent seven days enjoying the green grass at a nearby farm. Normally the veteran horseman does not work the filly between races, but after the well deserved rest he gave Ifhallscouldtalk an easy training mile on Monday to ready her for Thursday’s elimination.
“I don’t train her a whole lot. She doesn’t need much training. She pretty well looks after herself,” he says. “But she’s been out in the field for a week so I trained her this morning (Monday) a little bit. She came in from the farm on Saturday.”
Among the fillies Ifhallscouldtalk and Ritchie will have their eyes peeled for in the first division are former Gold Elimination winners Silhouette Dream from Post 4 and Miss Michelle H from Post 5.
Rideau Carleton Raceway’s Thursday evening program begins at 6:30 pm with the three-year-old trotting fillies hunting for a top four finish in Races 3 and 6. Only the top four finishers from each Gold Elimination, plus one fifth-place finisher selected by random draw, will earn a ticket to the $130,000 Gold Final at the Ottawa oval on Thursday, Sept. 2.