CAMPBELLVILLE, ON — Mohawk Racetrack features a double bill of Ontario Sires Stakes Gold on Saturday evening, with $130,000 Finals for the two-year-old pacing fillies and trotting fillies.
Only eight pacing fillies elected to return to the Campbellville oval for Saturday’s Final, but Murray Ross notes that the cream of the crop will all be on hand to try and prevent Invitro from scoring her fourth straight victory.
“The competition is really stiff,” says Ross, who shares ownership on the Camluck filly with Gordon Irwin of Cobourg. “But she’s never really been as good as she is right now. Hopefully she can stay that way for another four weeks.”
Invitro captured the Gold Elimination last Saturday with an impressive come-from-behind effort that saw her reach the finish one and three-quarter lengths ahead of the competition in 1:54.2. The winner of $127,598 will start from Post 4 this weekend and Ross says he expects trainer-driver Doug Brown to follow a similar path around the five-eighths mile oval.
“He hasn’t been leaving much with her because we had a lot of trouble with her behind the gate when we first started,” says the Norwood resident. “So I don’t think you’ll see too much running out of there from her, because she’s always done well from behind. And going for that much money there will be lots that are leaving.”
With seven races, four wins, one second and one third under her belt, Invitro has come a long way from the early days when anything from a bird to a tractor could send her scrambling for cover. Ross says the filly behaves like a veteran now and handled last week’s overnight stay in the retention barn without a hiccup.
“She’s really just like an old horse, especially at Mohawk on the big track,” he says. “She was in the retention barn there last week and she took it really, really good. She’s come along way.”
Conceived through invitro fertilization and transferred as an embryo from her mother Keystone Trinidad to a surrogate mare, Invitro’s progress has been a source of pride for the team at Armstrong Bros. that engineered the embryo transfer, but Ross says no one was more excited than he and Irwin after the filly’s elimination victory last week.
“We were a pretty happy bunch there last week. It was the biggest thing we’d ever won,” he says.
“I’ve been 37 years waiting for this,” agrees Irwin, adding that Brown deserves 95 per cent of the credit for the filly’s steady progress. “I’ve known Doug ever since he was a teenager. This is the first time I’ve been involved with a horse with him and I couldn’t be more pleased, nor could Murray. He deserves a lot of credit. It takes a special person to bring a young horse like this on.”
Invitro will aim to put more smiles on her owner’s faces in the second race on Saturday and two races later the trotting fillies will have an opportunity to do the same thing.
With division giant Peaceful Way skipping Saturday’s event to rest up for next week’s $300,000 Super Final all eyes will be on the other Elimination winner Ifhallscouldtalk. The Angus Hall daughter delivered the best effort she has put forth since early September to claim the 1:59.2 victory and trainer Rene Laarman is hoping the tides are finally turning in the filly’s favour.
“That was probably one of her better efforts. She started off the year very well, but then she ran into a couple of bad racetracks and she got sick as well,” explains the Guelph resident. “She’s just getting over those things and getting to where she can have a good finish to the year.”
After impressive victories in a Trillium Series division and Gold Elimination in early July, the filly made miscues in her next two starts and a subsequent qualifier, leading Laarman to reach for the trotting hopples.
“They help steady her a little off the gate,” explains Laarman, who trains the filly for Melvin Hartman of Ottawa. “I think right now she could probably get away without them, but it’s a little late in the year to be experimenting so I think we’ll leave them on.”
Laarman expects Ifhallscouldtalk to deliver another come-from-behind effort this week and will have his eyes peeled for fillies like Miss Michelle H from Post 2 and former Gold Final winner Flirting Lavec from Post 3.
The talented fillies are featured in Races 2 and 4 on Mohawk Racetrack’s 7:40 pm program Saturday, which wraps up the track’s regular season Ontario Sires Stakes events. The provincial program draws to a close next Saturday, Nov. 8 at the Campbellville oval with its $2.4 million Super Final Championship, featuring the top 10 point earners from each Gold division.