GLOUCESTER, ON — Rideau Carleton Raceway opens the two-year-old Ontario Sires Stakes season with three Gold Series Eliminations for the talented pacing colts on Thursday evening.
Twenty-three novice pacers will line up behind the gate on Thursday, competing for a total of $124,537. Among the youngsters attempting to carve out a niche on the provincial scene are a pair trained by Spencerville’s Jason Gilchrist — Moctar and Goneinajiffy.
Moctar heads into the first Gold Elimination, Race 2 on the 6:30 pm program, off a 2:00.2 win in a non-winners of $5,000 contest at Rideau Carleton on June 19. The Village Jiffy son also captured qualifiers at the Gloucester oval on June 5 and 12.
“He’s still a little green, but the other night he paced good. He wasn’t really challenged, but I think they’ll challenge him this week,” says Gilchrist, who conditions Moctar for breeders A K Malik Stable of Ottawa. “We were in between going to the Grassroots or the Gold, but since it’s right at home we decided to try the Gold.”
Moctar and Gilchrist will start from Post 2 on Thursday night and, at this early stage in the season, the 21-year-old horseman is hoping they can advance through to the July 3 Gold Final without finding the athletic colt’s highest gear.
“I hope we don’t have to go that fast,” he says. “He raced good (last week) and he drew good, now we just need some luck.”
With Post 8 in the second elimination, Goneinajiffy will also need some racing luck to make a return trip to his hometown oval next week. Another son of Village Jiffy, Goneinajiffy heads into Race 6 with a June 5 qualifying win over a sloppy Rideau Carleton track and an off the board finish in a June 14 non-winners of $3,500 race at Hippodrome de Montreal that Gilchrist says was not a good indication of the colt’s talent.
“I raced him in Montreal, in the mud, and he was real scared of the gate. I was right behind the starter,” says Gilchrist. “So I really didn’t get a good race into him. I think he’s got as much step as Moctar.”
A bargain basement $5,700 purchase by owners Raquel Stables Registered of L’Orignal, Goneinajiffy arrived in Gilchrist’s barn after last fall’s Canadian Classic Sale with a scruffy coat and an attitude to match. Although the colt’s looks improved over the winter, Gilchrist says his personality is still a few degrees shy of pleasant.
“At the sale the owner came over and said I bought a horse, but he looks terrible, and he did. He looked like he just came out of the field,” recalls Gilchrist. “He grew a lot when he came here, now he’s a big horse, and he looks better but he’s a little ignorant and he was hard to break. He took to the pace easy, we trained him free-legged all winter, but we still don’t have him going quite straight.”
Among the colts Goneinajiffy will face in Thursday’s sixth race is one of the top sellers from the Forest City Sale, Northern Regent. A son of Camluck and former Ontario Sires Stakes star Silver Reign, Northern Regent was hammered down to owners Sampson Street Stables of Old Forge, PA, Deena Rachel Frost of Delray Beach, FL, Jerry Silva of Bellmore, NY and Gerrie Tucker of Montreal, QC for a cool $100,000. The colt’s price reflects the success of siblings like $697,593 winner Northern Dynasty and $240,643 winner Northern Knight.
Curtain time at Rideau Carleton Raceway is 6:30 pm on Thursday, with the two-year-old pacing colts ready to make their Ontario Sires Stakes debut in Races 2, 6 and 8. The top three finishers from each elimination will return to Rideau Carleton on Thursday, July 3 for their first $130,00 Gold Final.