WINDSOR, ON — When the curtain goes up at Windsor Raceway on Sunday evening the top three-year-old pacers and trotters from the Ontario Sires Stakes Grassroots program will be in a unique situation. What happened in the regular season no longer matters. The number of points you accumulated will not carry you into the winner’s circle. As of Sunday the slate is wiped clean and every horse has an equal opportunity to post a top four finish and advance to next weekend’s $100,000 Grassroots Championship.
Opening the Semifinal spectacular are the sophomore trotting fillies and Bob McIntosh trainee Crown Lavec comes into the race off a lacklustre performance in the Oct. 12 regular season finale. However, the Windsor resident has been working hard to get his filly healthy and is hoping she can return to the mid-season form that saw her capture three straight Grassroots events.
“She got on a good streak and then she had some problems with stomach ulcers. We got them cleared up and then they kind of recurred,” says McIntosh, who trains Crown Lavec for Martin Sternberg of Brookville, NY and Alvin Katz of Roslyn Heights, NY. “I trained her here at the farm the other day and she seemed good.
“She’s not a world beater, but she’s honest. She’s a very consistent type who rarely makes a break. She just keeps on coming along,” adds the winner of last year’s Johnston Cup, awarded annually to the top trainer in the Ontario Sires Stakes program.
Crown Lavec will start from Post 6 in the third race on Sunday and Don McElroy, who piloted the filly to two of her three Grassroots wins, will be back in the race bike. McElroy’s efforts aboard McIntosh horses in last year’s Grassroots championships helped secure the Ingersoll native the Lampman Cup as the top driver in the OSS and both men are poised to score back-to-back titles with just three weeks remaining in the Sires Stakes season.
Crown Lavec will face division leader Our Pleasure from Post 5 in the third race, while the other trotting filly Semifinal goes postward as Race 7.
Next off the gate in Races 4 and 6 are the trotting colts, led by a trio of youngsters from the George Zirnis stable. Windsor residents Dennis and Janet Fairall share ownership on two of the colts, Royal King Pin and Carrland Buddy, with their partners in the Smart Cat Stable and the couple are looking forward to watching their colts race at their hometown oval on Sunday.
“I always get excited when they have a stake race in Windsor. It beats having to drive down the 401 to see them race. I even went out to see the draw today (Thursday),” says Dennis Fairall. “Hopefully they’ll both make it into the Final, finish in the top four.”
Royal Strength son Royal King Pin will step up behind the gate from Post 4 in the fourth race and stablemate Total Mayhem will also make his bid for a Final berth in Race 4. NFWR Stables of Brampton and Elmira residents Zirnis and Thomas Cousineau own Total Mayhem, a son of Promising Catch who will start from Post 6. In addition to his training duties, Zirnis drives all his trotters and Fairall expects the veteran horseman to handle Total Mayhem in the Semifinal and select someone else to drive Royal King Pin.
“Whenever there have been two entries he has been driving Total Mayhem because he’s a little tougher to drive,” says Fairall. “I don’t know who George will put down on Royal King Pin, but I’m sure he’ll give them the colt’s history before the race.”
Zirnis’s third entry is Carrland Buddy, who drew Post 6 in Race 6. The Flak Bait colt started the season at the Gold Series level and posted a runner-up finish in the May 11 Elimination at Western Fair Raceway and a third in the May 18 Final before an eighth-place effort in the June 3 event at Woodbine Racetrack caused Zirnis to rethink his strategy.
“He won two Gold Finals as a two-year-old, but he couldn’t make that step up to go miles in 1:56 this year,” says Fairall. “So I think George made a real smart decision to drop him down to the Grassroots. He’s been a real consistent performer in the Grassroots.”
After the trotters wrap up their Semifinal battles Windsor Raceway fans will turn their attention to the pacing fillies in Races 9 and 10. McIntosh and McElroy will attempt to pad their Johnston and Lampman Cup leads with a victory in the second division with Its A Cam Lie.
The Camluck filly will be aiming for her third Grassroots victory and McIntosh believes the move to a five-eights mile track will benefit the winner of $72,639.
“She prefers the bigger racetrack to the half mile. She’s a big striding filly,” says McIntosh, who bred and owns Its A Cam Lie in partnership with CSX Stables of Liberty Center, OH. “She’s been a nice steady filly. She’s not a superstar, but she’s turned out to be quite a useful sort.”
The evening will culminate with the Ontario Sires Stakes program’s marquee division, the three-year-old pacing colts in Races 12 and 13. A trio of colts with local connections will go postward including Corona Grande, who captured the Grassroots Championship as a two-year-old and was undefeated in the Grassroots program until Sept. 1.
The Camluck son heads into the Semifinal round off an uncharacteristically poor outing at Western Fair on Oct. 18, but trainer Jack Darling expects Corona Grande and driver Trevor Ritchie to deliver an improved performance from Post 7 in the twelfth race.
“He came out of it all right, but he didn’t really race good up there,” says the Windsor resident, who shares ownership on Corona Grande with Daniel Smith of London. “He didn’t seem to be pacing very well. The track was a little off and I don’t think he liked it.”
To advance to the Championship round on Nov. 3 the trotters and pacers must finish in the top four in their respective Semifinals. A total of $400,000 will be up for grabs on Championship Night and, once again, all eight starters in each Semifinal will have an equal opportunity to pocket the lion’s share of $100,000 and carry off the 2002 division title.