FRASERVILLE, ON — Ontario’s remarkable two-year-old trotting fillies head back to Kawartha Downs on Tuesday, Aug. 7 and Peterborough fans are eagerly awaiting the encore performance to last Tuesday’s record setting elimination round.

“It’s very tough,” says trainer-driver Jason Gilchrist of this year’s freshman trotting filly division. “I have three three-year-old trotting colts that can’t even trot that fast.”

Gilchrist’s Windsun Magical lowered the track and Ontario Sires Stakes record with her 1:57.3 Gold Elimination win on July 31, and the Spencerville resident was amazed when Dornello matched the clocking one race later and Torch missed it by one-fifth of a second in the last elimination.

“I thought when she broke the record it would kind of hold up for a while,” says the young horseman. “But it only held up for one race.”

Up until last Tuesday, the Ontario Sires Stakes record for two-year-old trotting fillies on a five-eighths mile track had not budged for nine years. Infinites Uprising clocked the former record of 1:57.4 at Windsor Raceway in a Gold Elimination on Oct. 31, 1998, in the seventh start of her freshman campaign. Dornello and Windsun Magical were making just their third and fourth lifetime starts.

Ironically, Gilchrist never expected that Windsun Magical would ever find her name inscribed beside a track record, let alone doing it in her fourth career outing. The daughter of Kadabra and Lady D Kosmos was difficult to teach, and all winter she seemed to loathe trotting.

“She was terrible. She used to spin a lot and she wouldn’t trot all winter,” admits the horseman, who trains Windsun Magical for Dr. Frederick Albert of Prescott. “We just threw her on the trailer (to qualify) because some other ones were going.”

Stepping onto the racetrack at Rideau Carleton Raceway for that June 7 qualifier, a light seemed to go on within Windsun Magical and the filly delivered a two length victory in 2:08. At Hippodrome de Montreal for a second qualifier on June 16, the filly trotted around the seven-eighths mile oval in 2:05.1 and thoroughly impressed her trainer.

“She just started to trot a couple training trips before we brought her in, but even then she didn’t look that good,” he recalls. “But when I qualified her in Montreal and she went a back half in a minute, it was pretty impressive.”

In spite of its impressive style, the mile was just shy of the required qualifying time for the Ontario Sires Stakes program, so Gilchrist sent the filly back to Rideau on June 28 and Windsun Magical bombed around that five-eighths mile oval in a smart 2:04.1, hitting the wire 38 lengths ahead of the competition.

Before the Gold Series season opener at Georgian Downs on July 17, Gilchrist entered Windsun Magical in a July 6 overnight at Rideau and the filly was once again victorious, this time in 2:03.4. At Georgian Downs she finished second to Torch in her elimination and second to Dornello in the Final, which was clocked in a track record 1:58.2.

“She keeps getting better, I just don’t know how much better she can get,” says Gilchrist. “She’s a definite female, her ears are always back, but when she has to work she does it pretty honestly so far.”

Gilchrist will pilot Windsun Magical from the trailing Post 9 in Tuesday’s $130,000 Gold Final, and the horseman is not sure how the filly will handle starting behind another horse.

“All winter she couldn’t leave, and that seems like one of her strengths now,” he says. “I don’t know how she’ll be. Jody (Jamieson) has got the rail with Torch, so that might be all right.”

For his part, Jamieson will be looking to secure a slightly different trip for Torch than the filly has seen in her first three Gold Series starts. With Post 8 in the Georgian Downs Gold Elimination and Final, and Post 4 in last Tuesday’s elimination, Torch has spent more than her fair share of time coming up the outside.

“She drew the rail, so that changes things,” notes trainer Carl Jamieson, who shares ownership of Torch with Ken Henwood of Mississauga. “She’s been drawing all these outside posts, but from the rail she can either leave a little and go from off the front or get away easier and coast, have a little more left at the end.”

The Princeton resident adds that son Jody said Torch was on cruise control coming down the stretch in the Gold Elimination and could easily have etched her name into the record books alongside Windsun Magical and Dornello, or maybe even have bettered their 1:57.3 clocking.

“She was coasting in the stretch, she could’ve trotted in 1:56 and a bit,” says Jamieson. “Jody thought so anyway.”

With that in mind, it seems as through the keepers of the record books should be on stand-by again this Tuesday, Aug. 7, as the two-year-old trotting fillies square off in Race 5 on Kawartha Downs’ 4:15 pm program.

For complete entries please go to:

http://www.standardbredcanada.ca/entries/data/ekdftu.html#N5