INNISFIL, ON — When the three-year-old trotting fillies arrive at Georgian Downs on Saturday evening for their last regular season Grassroots event the gloves will be off as the top 20 fillies vie for 16 spots in the Oct. 27 Semifinal.
Hovering just below the current cut off for the Semifinal is Norma and Clarence Varcoe’s Cajalooking. The Mr Lavec daughter has accumulated 63 points from one win, one fourth and one fifth place finish in five Grassroots starts and a top five finish on Saturday could move her into position for a post season berth.
“She’ll likely be pretty tough to get a check in there,” says Clarence Varcoe. “I just hope we can get a little bump.”
The long time Standardbred breeder sold his Alliston farm and has dispersed his broodmare group so Cajalooking is headed for the Standardbred Canada Fall Mixed Sale on Oct. 27 and Varcoe notes that a spot in the Semifinal would make her doubly attractive to prospective purchasers.
Jim Whelan trains and drives Cajalooking for the Varcoe’s and will send her after a share of the $23,376 purse from Post 8 in Race 4 on Saturday night. It will be the first time the filly has raced at Georgian Downs and her owners are hoping she finds their local oval to her liking.
“It isn’t far for us to go, only about 20 minutes away, but she’s never raced up there,” says Varcoe. “From there (Post 8) it will just depend on how we get away and everything.”
Among the fillies Cajalooking will face in Race 4 are Ja Mar Princess, who heads into the race off a win in the Sept. 28 Grassroots event at Kawartha Downs, and Ava Hall, who sits fifth in the standings with 104 points earned from one win, one second, two thirds and one fifth-place finish. Georgian Downs’ handicappers have selected Ja Mar Princess as their early line favourite from Post 3 and Ava Hall as their second choice from Post 2.
Newmarket resident John Bosworth will send Our Pleasure after her third Grassroots win from Post 8 in the first race on Saturday. The Super Pleasure daughter posted wins in the first two Grassroots events of the season and then tried her hand at the Gold Series fillies in June, finishing fifth in her elimination, before moving back down to the Grassroots for the last three events. John Holmes will drive the winner of $56,631 for Bosworth, hoping to reprise the sharp 2:00.3 mile he engineered over Georgian Downs’ five-eighths oval on Sept. 24.
The Innisfil oval raises the curtain on its Saturday night program at 7:30 pm and the three-year-old trotting fillies will take centre stage in Races 1, 4, 6, and 8.