SARNIA, ON — When trotting filly Keystone Stephanie makes her three-year-old debut at Hiawatha Horse Park on Thursday night, Dale and Richard Hunter will be hoping the filly’s on-track efforts can parallel the on-ice exploits of their Memorial Cup winning London Knights.

“We likely won’t have both,” says Richard Hunter with a chuckle. “It’s a hard racket now, that racing game. They go so fast. Up in Sarnia on Saturday night the non-winners of four went in 1:53.4.”

While Keystone Stephanie won’t have to go quite that fast on Thursday, her owners would like to see her come up with a mile similar to the one she delivered in qualifying action at Hiawatha on June 9. Leaving from Post 7 the Donerail daughter rocketed to the front of the pack and led the field through fractions of :29, :58.3 and 1:28.4 before fading in the stretch to finish second, clocked in 2:00.1. What they do not want to see is a replica of the headstrong trotter’s first qualifier, where she made a pair of breaks in the early going and finished well behind the pack.

“She does get a little hot. She wants to race and that’s it,” says Oil Springs resident Hunter. “Once the gate gets away she’s all right, but before that she can be a little temperamental.”

Keystone Stephanie and trainer-driver Dennis Morrissey will start from the advantageous Post 1 in the first of four $16,800 Trillium divisions on Thursday night, which should help the filly add to the $31,679 she earned as a two-year-old.

“She drew the rail, so that does help a lot,” remarks Hunter, who shares ownership on the fractious filly with son Dale Hunter of Petrolia, David Morrissey of Ailsa Craig and Mari Locking of London. “If you’re stuck way out in the eight or nine it makes it a lot tougher. You can get away kind of easy out of the one-hole and then see what happens.”

Through eight starts last season Keystone Stephanie captured two races, including one Trillium Series event, and finished second in a division of the Robert Stewart Stakes. A solid outing on Thursday could see the American-bred youngster heading to New Jersey for Sires Stakes action this summer.

Among the Ontario-bred fillies Keystone Stephanie will have to best to earn her passage south of the border are four runner-ups from the Grassroots season opener. Kind Gesture will start from Post 2, Win Some Way gets Post 3, Emme Emme will start from Post 5 and K T Cha Cha gets the outside Post 8 in Race 5.

Hiawatha Horse Park fans will also be treated to performances by Grassroots winners Whatthehecklavec from Post 5 in Race 6 and Dream On Bernie from Post 1 in Race 8. Gold Series regulars making the trip to Sarnia to compete in the Trillium include Lookit, who will start from Post 8 in the sixth race, Maleficent who gets Post 1 in Race 7, Oaklea Nattie from Post 6 in Race 7 and Keystone Leah, who will look to wrap things up from Post 4 in Race 8.

Hiawatha Horse Park oval sends its first race onto the track at 7:30 pm and the three-year-old trotting fillies will line up behind the starting gate in Races 5, 6, 7, and 8.

For a complete list of Thursday night’s entries go to:

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