REXDALE, ON — Since June 14 Invitro’s rivals have been waiting for her to get tired. But while owner Gord Irwin will admit that he has had enough of the long Ontario Sires Stakes season, he says the three-year-old pacing filly is in fine fettle heading into Saturday’s $300,000 Super Final at Woodbine Racetrack.
“I don’t know if she is tired, but I really am,” says Irwin. “I’ll be glad when it’s over.”
In addition to the stress of racing the undefeated division champion week after week, Irwin took over training duties on the Camluck filly this season and has dedicated himself to her health and happiness. And whatever the Cobourg resident is doing seems to be working. Invitro boasts a record of seven wins, one second and one third in Gold Series action, captured the elimination and final of the Canadian Breeders Championship and Standardbred Breeders and Owners Association of Ontario Stakes and finished second in her Fan Hanover Elimination and the Oct. 23 Breeders Crown Final.
“We’re at an excellent training facility this year and she is very happy and very content. We keep her beside the two-year-old filly we bought in Harrisburg, they’re buddies, and it keeps her happy,” explains the 66-year-old. “We just do whatever we have to do to keep her happy.”
Irwin shares ownership on the winner of $1.1 million with long time friend Murray Ross of Norwood and the partners have fostered an Invitro fan club that has expanded from coast to coast and beyond.
“She’s got a following all over the place. I had a call the other day from the Ukraine. Pat and Murray’s son works for the church in the Ukraine and he called to see why she wasn’t in the elimination,” says Irwin with a chuckle. “She’s got followers on the east coast and the west coast and everywhere in between.”
The pair threw a party at Woodbine the night of the Fan Hanover Eliminations and invited over 90 of their family and friends to celebrate Invitro’s success and thank her many supporters, who will be glad to hear that, as long as she stays healthy, the filly will return to the races as a four-year-old.
“That’s our plan,” says Irwin, who will be heading for Florida with the filly next week. “And Murray and I have talked about taking an embryo out of her next year. If she trains well down south we can wait until she gets back up here next spring to make the decision.
“It’s got a lot of positive things to it, and I see nothing negative about it after the experience we’ve been through with her.”
Invitro was conceived by in vitro fertilization and then carried and cared for by a surrogate mare while her mother, Ross and Irwin’s mare Keystone Trinidad, continued to race.
Before they spend too much time on next season though, the partners would like to see the filly and driver Paul MacDonell cap off their stellar year with a victory from Post 7 in Saturday’s ninth race.
“It’s a big race for us and we’d like to top the year off by having some luck in it,” says Irwin. “What our forefathers did when they set the Sires Stakes program up — we’ve made the money we’ve made and we haven’t travelled farther than Windsor — it’s the best in the world.”
The last race of the 2004 Ontario Sires Stakes season features the gifted three-year-old pacing colts and while Invitro will be looking to maintain her form through one last start, Armbro Balmoral will be looking to peak for a second time this season.
Another Camluck offspring, Armbro Balmoral put together a stellar run in the middle of the season that saw him set an Ontario Sires Stakes record over the Woodbine oval and claim the Aug. 16 Gold Final. And while he heads into the race off a less than favourable showing in the Nov. 6 Gold Final at Windsor Raceway, trainer Ben Wallace isn’t ready to concede victory to reigning Gold Final champion Geartogear quite yet.
“I know the horse will race well even though he was only fourth last week,” says Wallace. “I’m kind of liking the way he’s going into the race.”
Through a rigorous 23 race campaign this season, Armbro Balmoral has amassed a record of seven wins, six seconds, three thirds and earning of $517,501 for Wallace and owner Barnett Zimmerman LLC of Deerfield, IL. In addition to his Gold Final triumph the gelding claimed one Gold Elimination victory, the elimination and final of the Canadian Breeders Championship and finished second in his elimination and the final of the Confederation Cup at Flamboro Downs.
“He’s a decent horse, a decent racehorse, but on occasion he has been an overachiever,” admits the Milton resident. “So keeping him at that level can be kind of tough. But I love the horse. He has a tremendous constitution and he goes into each race and gives it his all.”
Armbro Balmoral and driver Mario Baillargeon will be giving it their all from Post 2 in the tenth race Saturday, lining up right beside two-time Gold Final winner and early favourite Geartogear who has drawn Post 1.
The first race at Woodbine Racetrack rolls in behind the starting gate at 7:40 pm on Saturday, with the Super Final events occupying Races 3 through 10. The three-year-old pacing fillies and colts will wrap up the outstanding 2004 season in Races 9 and 10.