CAMPBELLVILLE, ON — Heading into Friday evening’s Gold Series Eliminations at Mohawk Racetrack, all eyes are focused on the talented Peaceful Way.
Undefeated since her racing debut, the two-year-old trotting filly has six straight victories under her belt against the top competition in North America. More impressive, she has overcome Post 8 three times and last Saturday captured the $729,867 Goldsmith Maid Final with a 1:57.3 effort from Post 10 over a sloppy Mohawk oval.
“We concede the win in the Final with that other one (Peaceful Way) we have to face,” says Steve Bossence who trains and co-owns Gold Final winner Flirting Lavec. “She keeps drawing the outside too, but they could start her out on the Guelph Line and it wouldn’t matter. She’s in a league of her own.”
Peaceful Way will attempt to extend her win streak to seven from Post 8 in the first of two divisions, while Flirting Lavec looks for her fifth win in eight tries from Post 8 in the second elimination.
“She is the worst drawing horse I think I’ve ever had in the history of racing,” laments Bossence, whose filly has seen four outside posts in her seven starts. “But at least they didn’t match all the best ones together.”
With the threat of facing Peaceful Way in the elimination round allayed, Bossence says his main concern is making sure Flirting Lavec is healthy before Friday’s contest. The filly delivered a lacklustre effort in the Gold Elimination at Windsor Raceway on Sept. 21, was scratched sick out of a Trillium event at Georgian Downs on Oct. 4 and still showed signs of illness after her Oct. 17 qualifier.
“When she came back from Windsor she was wiped right out. Her blood wasn’t that bad and she didn’t show anything, but she was wiped out,” recalls the London resident. “I entered her for Barrie (Georgian Downs) and a couple of days before she didn’t train no hell, so we scratched her to try and give her time to get healthy. She seemed to train a lot better, but after we qualified her we took her over to Dr. McMaster and Danny scoped her and she scoped full of stuff.”
Hoping that the Mr Lavec daughter would be healthy after another week of treatment Bossence entered her for Friday’s contest, but notes that she will have to pass a second test on Thursday before he will load her on a trailer heading for Mohawk.
“We’re going to scope her again Thursday and if she scopes clean we’ll go, but otherwise we’ll concentrate on getting her healthy for the Super Final,” says the trainer. “Sickness is the biggest thing we have to deal with now in the industry. These viruses are tough to contain.”
Bossence shares ownership on Flirting Lavec with Warren Waxman of Dundas, who acquired half of the filly following her 1:58.4 victory in a division of the Champlain Stakes at Mohawk on Sept. 2.
“I said I really don’t want to sell all of her, I’ll sell half, then the horse obviously is staying here. A horse like this only comes along once and that’s it. You go through 100 to get one and go through another 100 to get the next one,” says the veteran horseman. “He said, that’s not a problem, in fact I think they liked that better, they figured hey, this guy likes her enough to keep half of her.
“Unfortunately he got in and our wheels fell off. Maybe she was only meant to be for me,” adds Bossence with an ironic chuckle.
If Flirting Lavec is ready to race on Friday Trevor Ritchie will handle the lines for Bossence and Waxman in the fourth race. Among the fillies they will face are former Gold Final winner Meadowview Marion from Post 6 and Oct. 18 Trillium winner Summerhill Hallie who will make her Gold Series debut from Post 1.
“She raced pretty decent up there (Kawartha Downs) the other night, and this is close to home, so we thought she deserved a shot,” says Cambridge resident Ron O’Neill, who trains Summerhill Hallie for Debi Martin and Paul Larrabee of Freelton and Daniel Harper of Toronto. “She’s a big filly so we’ve taken our time with her. She looks like she has lots of potential so we didn’t want to have too many starts into her this year.”
The gifted young trotting fillies star in Races 2 and 4 on Mohawk Racetrack’s 7:40 pm program Friday evening, with the top five finishers returning to Mohawk on Saturday, Nov. 1 for their last $130,000 Gold Final before the Nov. 8 Super Final.