DRESDEN, ON — Just six days after their last Grassroots appearance, the two-year-old trotting fillies headline the eighth annual Fan Appreciation Day at Dresden Raceway on Monday afternoon.
While Dresden fans feast on hot buttered corn on the cob and enter for an opportunity to win great cash and prize draws, the equine winners from the Aug. 31 Grassroots event will be trying to score back-to-back victories on the half-mile oval. Among the victors from the Kawartha Downs test was Oaklea Nattie, and trainer Paul Walker is hoping the Royal Ballad daughter can recapture her winning form after the brief break.
“We’ll have to see how some of them handle coming back in six days, including mine,” says the trotting specialist. “It will be interesting.”
Further complicating Oaklea Nattie’s attempt to score a second straight Grassroots victory are her post position and the tough field in Race 8. The filly will start from Post 6 and faces two other winners from Tuesday’s event as well as division point leader Eager Lois, who is trained by Walker’s brother Larry. Eager Lois starts from Post 3, Joys Incredible, who posted a 2:03.3 victory at Kawartha, gets Post 4 and Windsong Bethany, a 2:03 winner on Tuesday, gets the outside Post 7.
“The six-hole will make it tough. We’re going to have to see how the race shapes up. She’ll race well off the pace or the other way,” says Walker. “But more than likely we’ll be racing from off the pace.”
Oaklea Nattie’s Aug. 31 victory saw the filly land in second through the early going, move up the outside to the front heading toward the halfway marker and then cruise home three and a half lengths on top in 2:02.4.
“We’d been kind of careful, racing her from off the pace,” says the trainer-driver. “But, just the way the race worked out, the opportunity presented itself to try and put her on the front and see how she’d do, and she raced well.”
The Owen Sound resident trains Oaklea Nattie for breeders Oaklea Farm Inc. of Waterford and Dr. Ian Grant of Georgetown. The half-sister to $157,931 winner Gerry Lavec started her freshman campaign with a runner-up performance in Gold Elimination action at Grand River Raceway on July 23, but a sixth-place effort in the Aug. 2 Gold Final and a fifth in an Aug. 11 Trillium at Windsor Raceway convinced Walker to move Oaklea Nattie down to the Grassroots to give her confidence a boost.
“We thought it would be a little bit of a break for her, give her a chance to get her head above water,” says Walker, who also trained the filly’s mother, $104,867 winner Oaklea Ginny.
The first race on Dresden Raceway’s Labour Day Monday salute to their loyal fans goes postward at 1 pm, with the two-year-old trotting fillies starring in Races 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 and 14.