FRASERVILLE, ON — Port Hope resident Ray Paquette is hoping that Saturday night’s Gold Series Eliminations at Kawartha Downs will mark the second coming of Kawartha Snoopy. Once a demon on the Fraserville oval, Kawartha Snoopy has made a late transition to the stallion ranks and will see his first sons compete in the two-year-old trotting colt event this weekend.
Snoops Bytes and Snoops Jackpot will make their Ontario Sires Stakes debut from Post 3 in the fourth race and Post 5 in the sixth and Paquette is expecting good things from the young duo.
“So far, with what we have done with them, we’ve been pleased,” says Paquette. “And I have definitely not stretched them out yet. I am quite pleased with where I am at with them.”
Both colts head into Saturday’s contest off a pair of qualifiers. Snoops Bytes logged a 2:07 fourth-place effort over an off track on June 22 and then improved that to a third-place 2:04.1 mile on June 29. Snoops Jackpot made a break and was distanced in his June 22 attempt, but returned to Mohawk Racetrack one week later and delivered a 2:06.4 effort to finish third.
Paquette says the qualifying lines are an accurate reflection of the colt’s personalities, noting that Snoops Jackpot (Jack) has never been as eager to please as his stablemate.
“Bytes thinks he is 20, He is very mature, one of the most mature babies I ever broke,” he says. “He is very dedicated. Jack is a little different; He is a little hotter, quite a lot hotter actually. He has a mind of his own and if it works out on race day fine, but if not, oh well.
“More people liked Jack because he looked so good, but me personally, I always kind of liked Bytes.”
Ten years ago Paquette bought a stake in Speedy Somolli son Mr Chin and brought him north to stand at his Cedar Valley Farms. Mr Chin offspring did not succeed in the competitive Ontario Sires Stakes program and now Paquette wishes he had stuck with Kawartha Snoopy all along.
“I never thought Kawartha Snoopy would be fashionable so I invested $1 million in Mr Chin. Now I’ve gone back to the horse that put me on the map,” says the breeder. “I might have been doing the wrong thing for the last 15 years, and I hate to admit it.”
After driving Snoops Bytes in a training mile earlier this spring one of Paquette’s friends booked a mare to Kawartha Snoopy and Paquette is hoping others will follow suit once they see Snoops Bytes and Snoops Jackpot in action.
“They are decent colts and sound colts,” he says. “They are more brainy than the (Mr) Chins and a lot more sound.”
Snoops Bytes will face eight other colts in Race 4 on the 7:30 pm program, while Snoops Jackpot lines up alongside eight more in the sixth race, including the highest price yearling of the bunch, Imagesetter. Trained by Joseph Intine for Touch Stone Farms of Guelph, Armana Farms Inc. of Puslinch and Manfred Fischer of Cambridge, Imagesetter will make his bid for OSS glory from Post 9.
The other elimination goes postward as Race 2 on Saturday night and the top three finishers from each Elimination will return to the five-eighths mile oval on July 20 for their first $130,000 Gold Final.