SARNIA, ON — When Hiawatha Horse Park raises the curtain on its 2007 Ontario Sires Stakes schedule this Saturday, trainer Brian Maguire hopes Twin B Decalf can step into a starring role in the three-year-old trotting colt Grassroots performance.

Maguire and his partners Gordon and Jacqueline Lewis of Sarnia acquired Twin B Decalf at the end of his freshman campaign and were impressed by the young trotter’s skills right up until his April 18 qualifier. Since then the trio have been scratching their heads and struggling to discover what was keeping Twin B Decalf from realising his potential.

“He trained down excellent all winter, qualified well, and then threw in three clunkers,” says Maguire of the gelding’s April 25, May 2 and 15 starts. “Just when it came time to start racing, he fell apart.”

Maguire and his veterinarian did an array of tests on Twin B Decalf, but came up with no conclusive answers to what was ailing the trotter. Guessing that it might be allergies, Maguire started addressing the gelding’s respiratory health and saw some improvements, but felt Twin B Decalf was still under-performing.

“He’s a good gaited horse. That’s one of the things that kept irritating us, he’s too good gaited to be doing what he’s doing,” says the Windsor resident. “He’d get to the three-quarter pole and couldn’t finish any of his races.”

Jason Brewer has been Twin B Decalf’s primary driver since mid-June and the young reinsman kept pestering Maguire to have the gelding scoped again. Maguire finally complied after the gelding’s July 19 start at Hiawatha Horse Park, and says the results indicated that Lasix might be of benefit to Twin B Decalf. The gelding will make his first start on the diuretic this Saturday, and Maguire hopes to see a significant improvement.

“He’s a nice, big, strong horse,” notes Maguire. “When we were training down I thought he was a really nice horse.”

Twin B Decalf and Brewer will start from Post 6 in the first of eight $15,000 Grassroots divisions Saturday and Maguire says the post should not have an impact on the gelding, whose forte has never been his early speed.

“That should be all right. He hasn’t shown us any leaving speed, but he follows along good,” says the trainer. “Last week was a good race for him, so we are looking forward to the same thing Saturday.”

Twin B Decalf heads into Saturday’s contest off a fourth-place finish in a 2:02 mile at Woodstock Raceway on Aug. 4, which saw him close from sixth through the stretch.

Given the depth of talent in the first Grassroots division, Maguire may have to be content to measure Twin B Decalf’s efforts against his past performance. Among the colts Brewer and Twin B Decalf face in Race 2 are City Of London Trotting Series winner and Gold Series regular Passito from Post 2, Grassroots point leader Grogan from Post 4 and five-time winner Oratorio from Post 5.

Post time for Hiawatha Horse Park’s first Ontario Sires Stakes event of the season is 7 pm, with the three-year-old trotting colts showing off their skills in Races 2 through 9 on the Saturday evening program.

For complete entries please go to:

http://www.standardbredcanada.ca/entries/data/esarfsa.html