LONDON, ON — Western Fair Raceway will thrill London and area fans with an impressive line-up of stake races on Friday night, featuring a trio of Trillium Series divisions for three-year-old trotting fillies and the $100,000 Molson Export Invitational Pace.
William Loyens will be lined up on the rail for the Trillium Series event, rooting for his homebred filly Early Secret who starts from Post 2 in the fourth race. The London resident was on hand to see the filly win her Gold Elimination at Mohawk Racetrack on May 13 and finish a narrowly beaten second in the Gold Final on May 20, and he hopes he will be joined by his partner Malcolm MacPhail of Dover Centre for Friday’s contest.
“I will be there with bells on. I just hope Malcolm will be there too this time. He didn’t want to jinx her in the Elimination and then I think he was planting corn,” says Loyens. “It should be a good race Friday and it looks like it will be a good summer.”
Loyens and MacPhail have been enjoying Early Secret since the end of her two-year-old season when she captured the Grassroots Semifinal and Final and then finished second to Ontario Sires Stakes division leader Pepi Lavec in the Canadian Breeders Stake.
After a well deserved winter break trainer Paul Walker decided that the Earl daughter deserved a shot at the Gold Series and the filly delivered impressive results in her first outing against the top level horses.
“I thought she was good enough for the Golds last year, after she won the final of the Grassroots and finished second to Pepi Lavec,” recalls Loyens. “And Paul said if we were going to try her in the Gold we might as well do it in the first one.”
Early Secret accumulated most of her Grassroots points last season on half-mile tracks and Walker trains the winner of $176,944 on a half-mile track at his farm in Owen Sound so Loyens does not expect her to have any difficulty with the London oval on Friday night.
“Paul trains her on a half-mile track so she should be fine,” he says. “And you can do a lot worse than the two-hole at London.”
Although the Trillium Series is open to American-bred fillies owned by Ontario residents, Early Secret will face a field full of Ontario-breds in the fourth race on Saturday and Loyens says he will have his eye peeled for Meanstoyourdreams from Post 4. Another Gold Series competitor, Meanstoyourdreams is owned by Bentley Clark of Brantford, Mike Henowick of Hamilton and trainer-driver Richard McNeill of Brantford.
Only two American-bred fillies will make the trip to London for the first of three Trillium Series events on their schedule this summer, Great Garland, who will start from Post 5 in the first race, and Curitiba, who gets Post 1 in Race 7.
The three-year-old fillies kick off Western Fair Raceway’s impressive stakes line up at 7:30 pm on Friday night with the other two divisions featured in Races 4 and 7. The $100,000 Molson Export Invitational Pace heads in behind the gate in Race 8.