Muscle Up The Goal and A Little More Love, winners in the first Ontario Sires Stakes Gold event this year for two-year-old colt trotters, duplicated their performances by winning the two $105,000 Gold divisions tonight at Mohawk.
In the first and fastest split favourite Muscle Up The Goal didn’t disappoint his backers. He grabbed the point early for Chris Christoforou to lead the field by the opening quarter in :29.3 and could not be caught from there.
The Muscle Mass colt hit the half in 1:00 and just past that marker he had pressure from Alacrity and Eddie Green, but Muscle Up The Goal was up for the challenge as he put that rival away just past the 1:28.2 three-quarters and opened up through the lane to win comfortably in 1:57.2. Alacrity (Pilgrims Taj) held for second with Gronk (Muscle Mass) taking third.
It was the second straight OSS Gold victory for Muscle Up The Goal, a $30,000 Harrisburg yearling trained by Chris Beaver for owners Synerco Ventures Inc. of Toronto, Ontario. The colt’s dam, Tags Goal, is a half-sister to this year’s Hambletonian starter JJ Alex.
The second split saw A Little More Love and Randy Waples getting the call at the opening quarter in :29.2 despite leaving from post 10. As the field headed to the half, Dustin Jones had Dont Rush defying his name and rushing to the top and settling there well before the :59.2 half.
Dont Rush had company in the form of Rise Up Rise Up down the backstrech and that pair hit the three-quarters in 1:28.1. As they neared the wire other colts made their presence felt and it was a three horse photo finish in 1:59.1 with A Little More Love getting up on the inside to win by a whisker over Dont Rush (Infitif) and Win The Day (Deweycheatumnhowe).
A son of Kadabra, A Little More Love is now 2-2-0 in four starts in his young career. He captured the first OSS Gold event for this group at Georgian Downs earlier this month. To view the full results from tonight’s card at Mohawk, please click Mohawk Results – July 29.