HANOVER, ON — Hanover Raceway hosts its second straight week of Ontario Sires Stakes competition on Saturday night, welcoming four divisions of two-year-old trotting fillies in their second Trillium Series event.
Owen Sound trainer Paul Walker and first-time starter Northern Pixie will make their bid for a share of the $67,000 total purse in the second race and Walker is hoping that the Mr Lavec daughter will deliver a solid outing from Post 6.
“She’s only had a couple of qualifiers and in her last one (July 12) she unfortunately made a little break behind the gate, which I think is a little out of character for her,” says the trainer-driver. “That (Post 6) will likely keep her out of trouble heading into the first turn. With a filly that is just starting out it’s probably not a bad place to be.”
Walker and his long time partners Carscot Stables of Toronto share ownership on Northern Pixie, a $17,000 yearling purchase at last fall’s Forest City Yearling Sale.
“At the time I thought we got her pretty reasonable. I hope she proves me right,” says Walker. “I liked her in training this spring, we’re hoping she’ll make a decent filly, but she’s the type of filly I don’t think she’ll show us much until we get a couple of races into her.”
Among the fillies that Walker and Northern Pixie will face in their first start is Lukes Viviane, who heads into Saturday’s contest off a 2:03.4 victory at Hiawatha Horse Park in Grassroots action and a third-place finish in the Trillium Series season opener at Sudbury Downs.
Carl Jamieson trains the King Conch daughter and says his only game plan is to keep the winner of $17,515 steady on her feet.
“The main thing really at Hanover is to stay trotting. There will probably be some that run into the first turn,” says the Jarvis resident. “I haven’t really tried to leave with her yet and I’ll probably take it easy off the gate. At Sarnia she came from next to last to win, trotted her back half in 1:00.4, so she can close.”
During her early training sessions in Florida, Jamieson might have predicted that Lukes Viviane would be one of the fillies who would run into the first turn, but the addition of trotting hopples and some shoeing changes seem to have resolved the filly’s early difficulties.
“She wasn’t really showing much all winter, she was making a lot of breaks for a while,” says Jamieson. “But she seems pretty steady now we’ve got the trotting hopples on her and got her shoeing right. We just had to get the angles right and change some weights on the front.”
Jamieson will steer the $32,000 yearling acquisition from Post 6 in Race 2 for his partners Gerald Ross of Downsview and William Knights of Blenheim.
Northern Pixie and Lukes Viviane will strut their stuff in front of the Hanover Raceway fans right after the 7:20 pm first race. The other three Trillium Series divisions go postward as Races 6, 9, and 10 leading up to the featured Walker Memorial Trot in Race 11.