GLOUCESTER, ON — Heading into the second half of their Grassroots season at Rideau Carleton Raceway on Friday night, all three of Dr. Frederick Albert’s two-year-old trotting colts are within striking distance of a berth in the lucrative post season.

King Clifford heads the Prescott resident’s entry, sitting fourth in the division standings with 75 points earned through three runner-up finishes, Mister Machine sits in twelfth spot with 55 points garnered from one win and one fifth-place finish and Al The Pal hovers on the edge of the top 16 with 50 earned from his lone Grassroots victory.

“We are just going to go easy with them and see how they do,” says Albert. “They are so young, and so green, we don’t want to spoil them.”

Louis Gilchrist trains all three colts and his son Jason Gilchrist will pilot them at Rideau Carleton on Friday. First out of the starting gate is Al The Pal, who has taken his connections on a roller coaster ride through the first three Grassroots events.

The Angus Hall son delivered three steady qualifiers at Rideau Carleton in June, and then made a break in the Grassroots season opener at Hanover Raceway on July 5. Eleven days later he was flawless in a gate to wire effort at Dresden Raceway, cruising under the wire 11 lengths ahead of the Grassroots competition in 2:07.1, but his third provincial start saw him finish at the back of the field after making a break heading to the three-quarters.

“At Belleville, if one horse goes off, it destroys the whole line,” says Albert of Al The Pal’s most recent miscue at Quinte Exhibition Raceway on Aug. 4. “We are trying to work with him to settle him down.”

Al The Pal, a $21,000 US purchase from the Harrisburg Yearling Sale, will start from Post 7 in the eighth race at Rideau Carleton on Friday.

Stablemate Mister Machine gets Post 6 in the ninth race and will sport a pair of trotting hopples for the first time in his five race career. The full brother to $152,797 winner Flirting Lavec made his racing debut in an overnight at Rideau Carleton on June 23 and made a break while sitting on the outside by the three-quarter pole. In the July 5 Grassroots event at Hanover Raceway he was an easy two length winner in 2:06 so Gilchrist and Albert decided to give him a shot at the Gold Series.

On July 13 at Mohawk Racetrack the son of Mr Lavec and Flirting Image looked poised to advance out of the Gold Elimination, duelling with eventual winner Smarty Jims into the stretch, but then made a late break that left him eighth in the field of 10. Another late break in a July 21 overnight event at Rideau Carleton forced Gilchrist to requalify the gelding and a third rough outing at Quinte Exhibition Raceway on Aug. 4 resulted in the addition of trotting hopples to Mister Machine’s equipment bag.

“He is a horse most of the people in the barn like,” notes Albert. “He seems to have a lot of talent, we just have to harness that and use it in the best way we can.”

Like Mister Machine, King Clifford will start from Post 6 on Friday, looking for another top three finish in the last of seven $15,000 Grassroots divisions. Also like his stablemates, the King Conch son has struggled with breaks through the early stages of his racing career, but in all three starts he has recovered quick enough to finish second.

Purchased as a weanling, the half-brother to $401,606 winner Armbro Ogden was originally named Armbro Esplanade, but his caretakers rejected that in favour of Clifford.

“The girls at the barn loved him and they kept calling him Clifford,” recalls Albert. “They urged me to change his name, and because his father was King Conch we called him King Clifford.”

King Clifford and his peers will entertain Rideau Carleton Raceway fans in Races 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, and 11 on Friday evening, with the first race stepping in behind the gate at 6:30 pm.

For complete entries please go to:

http://www.standardbredcanada.ca/entries/data/eridcffr.html