BELLEVILLE, ON — Quinte Raceway has attracted 66 talented three-year-old pacing colts for Monday afternoon’s Grassroots event, the third on the colts’ 2003 Ontario Sires Stakes schedule.
For Stan Klemencic of Trenton the event will serve as a proving ground for Close The Bank and Artistic Bunny, a pair of talented freshman who have failed to meet expectations this season.
“We haven’t got the same faith in them we did a year ago,” explains the long time owner. “Anything they do (Monday) would be appreciated, but I don’t count on anything.”
Close The Bank, with Mark MacDonald at the reins, is the first of Klemencic’s duo to step on the track Monday and the Run The Table son will benefit from the advantageous Post 1 in Race 4.
“He drew very well and I think he’s got a good driver so we will have to see how he does,” says Klemencic, who shares ownership on the colt with David Reid of Kingston, Peter Heffering of Port Perry and Arthur Slack of Cumbria, England. “He hasn’t raced for a while, but he did work a couple of good miles last week and this week.”
Mark Steacy trains Close The Bank, who has made just five starts this season after a long layoff to recover from an injury he sustained at two. Although the colt has toured Woodbine Racetrack’s seven-eighths mile oval in 1:52.2, he has so far failed to crack the top three, a situation Klemencic and his partners would like to see remedied on Monday.
“He came out last year really good and then he got a problem so he was laid off for a long time,” says Klemencic. “He’s actually just coming back, and maybe we’re bringing him back too early, but we feel he’s got to show his colours. We have to see if he’s just a horse, or a good horse.”
The colt’s stablemate Artistic Bunny is in a similar situation. After a stellar start to his two-year-old campaign the Precious Bunny son tailed off and has yet to regain the step he showed early in his career. In the first two Grassroots events the colt finished fourth, earning 16 points, so a solid effort on Monday would give his chances at a post season berth a sizeable boost.
Gord Brown will pilot Artistic Bunny from Post 3 in the fifth race for Klemencic, Reid, Heffering and trainer Mark Steacy of Lansdowne.
Steacy also sends out Alberts Destiny from Post 2 in the second race and Dawnbrae Eclipse from Post 4 in the ninth.
Quinte Raceway sends it’s first race onto the track at 1:30 pm Monday and the three-year-old pacing colts take over the afternoon’s program from Race 2 to 10 as nine divisions of hopefuls compete for $18,000 and additional Grassroots points.