HANOVER, ON — Hanover Raceway wraps up its 2006 Ontario Sires Stakes schedule this Saturday, Sept. 2 with the last regular season Grassroots event for the three-year-old pacing fillies.
While it is too late in the campaign for the six local fillies to earn a berth in the Grassroots post season, their owners and trainers are hoping some of the $105,000 in provincial purse money stays in the Hanover area.
“We’re 15 minutes from Hanover and she paid her way in last week,” says Chesley resident Jeffrey Thomson, who trains and owns S A Chinook with his wife Lori Thomson. “She’s going to have to be at the top of her game to compete on Saturday, but we knew that when we put her in there. Basically we’re hoping to get a cheque.”
S A Chinook makes her sophomore debut in the Grassroots program from Post 6 in the eighth race on Saturday and Thomson says the combination of an outside post and a particularly tough field will give the Presidential Ball daughter all she can handle in her quest for a top five spot.
“That’s not a good post position at all,” admits the horseman. “She can leave, but it will be tough from Post 6.
“I think she drew in pretty tough,” he adds. “I see Alias Seelster is in there, I know her, and I’m sure when I look up the others there will be some more good ones in there.”
S A Chinook earned her way into Saturday’s Grassroots contest with a 1:59.1 victory at Hanover Raceway on Aug. 23, pushing her sophomore record to three wins, four seconds, two thirds and earnings of $23,528 in 13 starts.
“She raced decent her last start, but she had the rail and got things her own way, which she likes and needs,” says Thomson. “And 1:59 isn’t going to win this week.”
Joining S A Chinook in the eighth race is Happymemories, one of two fillies in Saturday’s contest that hail from the Bud Fritz barn. Coming into the race off a bout of sickness that saw her scratched out of an Aug. 18 contest at Grand River Raceway, Happymemories will try and claim her third win of the year from Post 2. Breeder Clarence Bast of Millbank and Fritz share ownership on the D M Dilinger daughter, who is a half-sister to $136,659 winner Nothingbutluck.
Walkerton resident Fritz will also pilot Dazzling Fame from Post 2 in the sixth. The Apaches Fame miss makes just her seventh lifetime start on Saturday and heads into the race off a third-place finish at Hanover on Aug. 5. Fritz shares ownership on Dazzling Fame with Wayne Lowry of Kincardine.
George Kerr of Gowanstown shares ownership of Cammache Legacy with Gregg McNair of Guelph and Leonard Gamble of Etobicoke, and the partners will be hoping the half-sister to talented two-year-old filly Canadette can pick up a share of the third race purse from Post 4.
The other two local fillies hoping to steal a piece of the last Grassroots pie are Imarealsweetheart, owned and trained by Roger Gebhardt of Hanover, who will start from Post 7 in Race 4 and Own The Moment, who gets the trailing Post 8 in the ninth race for Stoney Island Stable of Kincardine.
Post time at Hanover Raceway on Saturday evening is 7:25 pm, and the three-year-old pacing fillies will wrap up their Grassroots regular season in Races 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9 and 10.
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http://www.standardbredcanada.ca/entries/data/ehnvrsa.html