REXDALE, ON — Heading into Monday’s $130,000 Gold Final at Woodbine Racetrack, division leader Lady Dillinger is on cruise control. With 16 starts and seven wins under her belt this season, the three-year-old pacing filly is in peak condition and trainer Gaetan Hebert says she does not have to work hard between races to maintain her fitness level.

“I just take it easy with her. I want to keep her for the long haul, not for the short term,” says the Waterdown resident. “She doesn’t train between races. The only time she trains is if she hasn’t raced for two or three weeks. Then I’ll go one slow mile with her.

“I didn’t train her at all week last week after she raced in the Fillies and Mares Open (Oct. 14), and she come out and raced large,” he adds.

The D M Dilinger daughter was an effortless winner in last week’s elimination round at Woodbine, cruising to a two length victory in 1:54.2 over a track rated one second slower than normal. In the month leading up to last week’s contest, Lady Dillinger battled some of the top fillies and mares on the Woodbine circuit, including last year’s Ontario Sires Stakes star Invitro, and came away with a record of one win, one fifth and one eighth-place finish in the elite company.

“She raced good against those guys. She wasn’t staked to anything else, so I had to race her somewhere,” says Hebert, who bred and owns the winner of $828,481. “She wants to do it, she’s just like her mother (Teenager Girls) was. She gives you all she’s got.”

Lady Dillinger captured the last two Gold Finals and will make her bid for a third title from Post 9 in Monday’s fifth race. And while the post does not appeal to Hebert, he says the filly has proven she can overcome an outside starting position.

“She had the nine-hole for the Fan Hanover Final too. Oh well, I’m getting used to it, or I should say, she’s getting used to it,” says the horseman.

Competing against the top fillies in North America, Lady Dillinger logged a third-place finish from Post 9 in the Aug. 27 Fan Hanover Final at Mohawk Racetrack. She qualified for the $680,100 Final with a runner-up finish in the elimination one week earlier.

“I was happy with the third,” recalls Hebert. “I was looking for a fourth or a fifth, but she was third and she almost got second.”

Mike Saftic will steer the talented distaffer from Post 9 on Monday and the Campbellville resident will be watching for the other elimination winner KG Delight from Post 4 and the other two-time Gold Final winner in the field, Lady D M, from Post 2.

Woodbine Racetrack’s first race goes postward at 7:40 pm on Monday, and the three-year-old pacing fillies will line up against each other in Race 5 for the last Gold Final event of their careers. Fans who cannot make it to Woodbine to watch the fillies in action can catch them on Race Night on The Score.

For complete entries please go to:

http://www.standardbredcanada.ca/entries/data/ewdbsmo.html#N5