ELMIRA — Elmira Raceway fans will recognize several of the three-year-old pacing fillies competing in this Friday’s $68,000 Trillium Series event.
Rhiannon O Rhye, Wendys Rocket, Putnam Kelly and Thelma all competed in the Gold Series Final at Elmira last week. The quartet will be hoping their experience on the half-mile oval gives them an edge over the Grassroots competitors and American-bred fillies who have joined them for this Friday’s skirmish — open to any sophomore filly owned by Ontario residents, Ontario-sired or otherwise.
Several of the fillies who started in the Grassroots event at Dresden Raceway on May 19 will use Friday’s Trillium as an opportunity to test their wings against Gold calibre fillies, including Rene Bourassa’s Rude Native who captured a division of the Grassroots season opener and then posted a sharp third-place finish in a May 29 contest at Woodbine Racetrack.
“She raced really good for me at Woodbine in her last start. She paced her own mile in 1:55.1, her best effort this year so far,” says Bourassa. “It looks like she improved in her last start so we might give a her a try in the Gold. We’ll see after this mile, but hopefully she’s going to go to the Gold.”
Rude Native arrived in Bourassa’s barn just two weeks ago and the Native Born filly was impressive enough through her initial lessons that his wife Kim purchased a share of the filly from owners Adventure Acres Limited of Campbellville. Although the Guelph resident was not on hand to see Rude Native’s victory in Dresden, the talent she has shown since her arrival has him hopeful that she can earn a share of the $17,058 purse on Friday night, in spite of drawing the outside Post 7 in the fourth race.
“That’s the sad part,” he says of the post position draw. “But it’s just a seven-horse field so you never know. She’s feeling good right now so I think she’s got a shot in there.”
Don McElroy will pilot Rude Native and Bourassa is looking forward to renewing a partnership that earned him a Grassroots Championship with three-year-old trotting filly Sweet Dreams Baby in 2001.
“Hopefully Don McElroy will be there. Two years ago he drove Sweet Dreams Baby for me and she won the Grassroots Final at Hiawatha,” says Bourassa. “He’s a good driver. I really like him.”
Bourassa’s filly contributed to McElroy’s sweep of the 2001 three-year-old Grassroots Finals and the first of two consecutive Lampman Cup victories as the top reinsman in the Ontario Sires Stakes program.
Among the fillies Rude Native will face in the second of four Trillium divisions is Putnam Kelly, who battled for the lead through the early stages of last week’s Gold Final before fading to seventh in the stretch. Putnam Kelly will start from Post 2 on Friday. Hot Shot Rocket, another Grassroots division winner from Dresden, will start from Post 5.
The three-year-old pacing fillies will star in Trillium Series action in the second, fourth, eighth and tenth races on Elmira Raceway’s Friday evening program, which gets under way at 6:55 pm.