DUNDAS, ON — Flamboro Downs’s signature event, the Confederation Cup goes postward Sunday evening with a pair of $130,000 Gold Finals playing a supporting role on the $900,000 program.

Ontario’s talented two-year-old pacing colts will warm up the crowd in Race 2, with reigning Gold Final champion Alastor Hanover looking for his fifth straight victory from Post 4. While the top finishers from the Confederation Cup eliminations catch their breath in preparation for the Final, the leading three-year-old trotting colts in the province will battle in Race 10, and no matter how Ab’s Speedy Hall finishes Julie Marie Jamieson intends to enjoy every aspect of the evening’s festivities.

“We didn’t pay a lot for him and we didn’t expect a lot of him,” says the Carlisle resident. “My father and I always wanted a trotter — we’re from the Maritimes and there aren’t a lot of trotters down there — and we thought if we got a racehorse out of him we’d be doing good. Never in our wildest dreams did we expect him to be a stakes horse, let alone a Gold horse. He’s exceeded all our expectations.”

The young horsewoman and her father Eldon Jamieson, who resides in Sherwood, PEI, acquired Ab’s Speedy Hall for a mere $5,000 last December. After the gelding recovered from having a bone chip removed from a hind ankle Jamieson and trainer Michael Porter started to prepare Ab’s Speedy Hall for his sophomore season.

The Angus Hall son qualified solidly on June 7 and then made his racing debut in the June 14 Grassroots event at Georgian Downs, where he posted a 1:59.1 victory. A 1:57.4 win in a June 28 overnight at Georgian Downs convinced the trio that a promotion to the Gold Series was in order and Ab’s Speedy Hall delivered a fifth-place finish in the July 10 eliminations at Rideau Carleton Raceway, overcoming a break at the start to squeak into the final. Seven days later the novice trotter made another early break and had to settle for eighth in his first Gold Final attempt.

Required to requalify, Ab’s Speedy Hall headed to Mohawk Racetrack for a July 28 qualifier, touring the seven-eighths mile oval in 2:01.2, and then return to Mohawk for a runner-up finish in a non-winners of two races event that saw him trot his own mile in a smart 1:56.3. In last weekend’s Gold Elimination at Flamboro Downs the gelding proved he belonged on the province’s top circuit with an impressive seven and three-quarter length romp in 1:57.4.

“He’s peaking at the right time, we hope,” says Jamieson. “He’s just a little guy, with not a lot of breeding behind him, that has a big heart and tries really hard to overcome all his problems and be a good horse.”

Among the gelding’s most significant problems was a preference for the pace during his first year of training, part of the reason the Jamieson’s were able to acquire the young trotter so inexpensively.

“He was kind of the horse that nobody wanted,” recalls Jamieson. “All he wanted to do was pace.”

Jamieson says the removal of the bone chip and time seem to have cured the gelding of his gait confusion and notes that his next hurdle will be Post 8 in Sunday’s Final.

“I guess somebody had to get the eight-hole,” she says. “But he has some gate speed and he can race out of a hole. He’s very good gaited. He doesn’t wear a lot of boots, and he can get around any size racetrack with no problem.

“He’s just a really nice little horse, very intelligent and he takes really good care of himself. He’s a gentleman on the track,” she adds.

Regular reinsman Dave Boughton will steer Ab’s Speedy Hall from Post 8 in Sunday’s tenth race, with their primary competition expected to come from the other elimination winner Stonebridge Diablo, who will start from Post 2.

After the dust settles from the sophomore trotting colt Gold Final, Flamboro Downs fans will be treated to the $495,000 Confederation Cup Final in Race 11.

Post time for Sunday’s outstanding program is 6:20 pm, with the Ontario Sires Stakes Gold Finals featured in Races 2 and 10, the Signature Pacing Series Final contested in Race 7, the Confederation Cup Eliminations going postward as Races 8 and 9 and the lucrative Confederation Cup Final slated as Race 11.

For a complete list of entries please go to:

http://www.standardbredcanada.ca/entries/data/eflmdsu.html