WINDSOR, ON — Windsong Espoir may sport the most impressive race record of the two-year-old trotting colts heading for Windsor Raceway this Sunday, but when the field parades onto the racetrack for their $98,048 Gold Elimination it will be the flashy Shoeless White Sox who gets all the attention.

“He’s named right. He’s got shoes on, but he’s got the white socks,” says the colt’s trainer Stephen Bossence, with a laugh. “He’s sorrel actually, he’s past chestnut, and he’s got white all over him. The white goes above his hocks and above his knees.”

The eye-catching young trotter will make his third Gold Series appearance from Post 3 in the eleven horse field on Sunday, and the humour disappears from Bossence’s voice when he talks about formulating a race strategy in a field with two trailers.

“There’s no race strategy,” says the London resident, bluntly. “You either have good racing luck or bad racing luck, and you won’t know that until the race is over.

“There are a lot of dejected people right now, to tell you the truth,” he adds. “He might race his guts out, get no money, and the bigger one, get no points.”

With a third in his Gold Series debut at Mohawk Racetrack on Sept. 23, and a fourth in the Gold Final one week later, Shoeless White Sox has accumulated 20 points toward a berth in the season ending Super Final. Another solid performance at Windsor on Sunday would boost the Mr Lavec son’s chances of extending his freshman campaign to Nov. 10, and Bossence would love to see the colt get a shot at the $300,000 season finale.

“He shows some go to him, and each week he is getting a little better,” notes Bossence, who conditions the colt for owner and breeder Chris Alexander of King City. “The others, they’re getting tired, they’ve had a long year, and he hasn’t. He’s just coming onto the scene.”

Robert Walker Jr. taught Shoeless White Sox his early lessons and raced him twice, to a fifth in an Aug. 9 overnight at Kawartha Downs and a fourth in the Aug. 21 Grassroots event at Georgian Downs. Alexander opted to send the colt to Bossence after the Grassroots start, and the trainer admits he was underwhelmed the first time he sat behind Shoeless White Sox.

“He was just a horse, that’s all,” says Bossence. “He was okay, he trotted, but he didn’t really seem like he had too much fire.”

Before racing the young trotter, Bossence gave Shoeless White Sox a test run in a qualifier at Mohawk Racetrack on Sept. 3. The colt finished second, trotting his own mile in 2:01.4. Sent out in a two-year-old conditioned event at Mohawk two weeks later, the first foal of Northern Style finished third in a field of Ontario Sires Stakes competitors, clocking a last quarter in a smart :27.3.

Off that mile Bossence and Alexander felt the colt deserved a shot at the Gold Series, and Shoeless White Sox stepped up his game once again, finishing third in a 1:56.2 Gold Elimination behind the dominant Windsong Espoir and division point leader Pizzazzed. In the Sept. 30 Gold Final Shoeless White Sox finished fourth, in spite of a late break that Bossence hopes was due to the tough trip around the outside the novice trotter endured.

“When trotters make breaks at the end of the mile they are either tired or lame, and he didn’t seem lame after the mile or the next day,” says the veteran horseman.

“He’s come a long way in a short time,” Bossence continues. “His attitude has always been good, and he had all the slow miles in him. He didn’t have any speed, but that’s just come on his own. He’s just got a little better on his own.”

Shoeless White Sox will be looking to elevate his game for a fourth straight start in Sunday’s seventh race. Two colts will be eliminated from the field of 11, and the top nine finishers will return to Windsor Raceway on Sunday, Oct. 14 for the last $130,000 Gold Final of their freshman campaign. Post time for Windsor’s Sunday evening program is 7 pm.

For complete entries please go to:

http://www.standardbredcanada.ca/entries/data/ewrfsu.html#N7