BELLEVILLE, ON — Quinte Raceway wraps up its 2002 Ontario Sires Stakes schedule on Labour Day Monday with five Grassroots divisions for the exceptional three-year-old pacing fillies.

Mingling with the Grassroots regulars in Belleville will be a handful of Gold Series fillies taking advantage of the event’s wild card status, which allows them to drop down for a start without being required to skip a corresponding Gold event.

Among the fillies using the wild card event as part of their Ontario Sires Stakes strategy is Imoutahere, whose best result in the Gold Series this summer was a win in the June 17 Elimination at Woodbine Racetrack and a runner-up finish in the June 24 Final. The Bill Robinson trainee takes on the Grassroots lasses from Post 5 in the sixth race and she and driver Brett Robinson will be hoping to spark a return to her early season form.

Lining up alongside Imoutahere in Race 6 is a first time Ontario Sires Stakes starter, Beyond The Blue. Mary Lee Quinn trains the Broadway Blue daughter for Joseph Swain of Cannington and Robert Quinn of Beaverton and has been prepping the filly for her Grassroots debut for almost two months.

“We thought we’d got to Sudbury (July 5), but she got sick,” says the Cannington resident. “She’s a small mare and she’s very good on a half-mile track.”

In 10 starts this season Beyond The Blue has one win and three thirds and heads into Monday’s event off a third-place finish at Georgian Downs on Aug. 27, just her fourth start since battling the equine version of the common cold. A solid result at Quinte could earn the filly the right to compete in the last Grassroots event over Western Fair Raceway’s half-mile oval on Oct. 11.

“We’re just getting her back,” explains Quinn. “We’ll take it stride by stride and she how she does, but if she does okay we might.”

Regular driver Allan Nicholls will pilot the filly from Post 4, and the duo will also face one of the divison leaders, Its A Cam Lie, from Post 6.

In three Grassroots starts the Camluck daughter has recorded two wins and one fourth-place finihs for a total of 108 points, just four behind leader Red Star Veronica. Windsor resident Bob McIntosh trains Its A Cam Lie for his partners CSX Stables of Liberty Center, OH and the filly has earned $39,488 on their behalf this season.

The three-year-old pacing fillies are also featured in Races 2, 4, 5, and 8 on Quinte Raceway’s 1:30 pm holiday Monday program and a group of young men and women from Belleville and area 4-H Horse Clubs will have an opportunity to meet the winner of each one as part of a special Ontario Sires Stakes 4-H Afternoon at the Races.

The 4-H members will have an opportunity to tour the backstretch, meet the presiding judges and participate in the winner’s circle presentations following each OSS event. The Ontario Sires Stakes 4-H Day at the Races was developed at Hanover Raceway by Owen Sound’s Brenda Walker, a former chairman of the OSS Publicity Committee and the wife of regular Sires Stakes competitor Paul Walker. Walker encouraged racetracks across Ontario to open their doors to local 4-H Horse Clubs and tracks such as Quinte Raceway have generously risen to the challenge.