DRESDEN, ON — Two-year-old pacing colt Character Maker will make his second start for local trainer Paul Mairs on Sunday afternoon at Dresden Raceway, competing in the third of seven $15,000 Grassroots divisions.

“I don’t know too much about him yet,” says the Dresden resident. “We’re still kind of working things out. We’ve only had him two weeks.”

Mairs acquired Character Maker out of Carl Jamieson’s consignment at the Aug. 26 Summer Sizzler Sale — offering up $10,000 for the son of Grinfromeartoear and Innocently — and gave him a test run in an overnight event at Hiawatha Horse Park on Sept. 2. Character Maker finished fourth in a field of older horses over a sloppy track rated two seconds slower than normal, and Mairs says the young pacer seems to have bounced back well from the effort.

“He raced up at Sarnia on an off track and he came out of the race good,” says the trainer, who shares ownership on the colt with his wife Tami Allan Mairs through their Maple City Equestrian Centre. “So far we’re happy with him. We got a cheque with him anyway.”

Character Maker is the second horse that Mairs has acquired from Jamieson’s annual stable reduction. Last summer he purchased freshman pacing colt Dextra Effort from the midsummer sale and the colt has gone on to a $55,000 plus career this season.

“This horse had similar lines, and the three-year-old’s made almost $60,000 this year, so I guess we’re trying to get hit by lightning twice,” says Mairs with a chuckle. “What we do with horses seems to work with what Carl (Jamieson) does.”

With a third-place finish in his only Grassroots start this season, Character Maker is well below the current cut off for the Grassroots post season, but Mairs says their main objective for the colt is next season’s Ontario Sires Stakes program.

“He’s a nice colt, well put together, a decent size,” notes the trainer. “We bought him for his three-year-old year. We’re only going to race him a couple of times this year.”

Character Maker will start from Post 4 in the fifth race on Sunday and Mairs was relieved that driver Alex Lilley’s prediction of Post 8 did not bear fruit.

“I thought Alex was going to jinx us. The other night he said, �We’re probably going to get the eight-hole,'” recalls Mairs. “But we’re on the gate. The best we can hope for is a good trip.”

Lilley will try and carve out a trip for Character Maker behind recent Grassroots division winners Along Came Polly, who will start from Post 2, and Deuces And Jacks, who gets the outside Post 7.

The two-year-old pacing colts will compete in their last Grassroots event in Races 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 and 10. Sunday’s contest is also Dresden Raceway’s last Ontario Sires Stakes event of the 2006 season, and it gets under way at 1 pm.

For complete entries please go to:

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