REXDALE, ON — When the two-year-old pacing fillies wrap up their provincial stakes season with an $83,655 Trillium Series division at Woodbine Racetrack on Friday evening, Gerry Sparling is fervently hoping that Val’s Vision can deliver one last good effort.
Two months ago the young pacer posted an impressive 1:55.2 victory in an overnight event at Mohawk Racetrack that put stars in the eyes of West Hill resident Sparling and his partners Kenneth Raspin and Larry Jeffrey of Goderich. However, one week later Val’s Vision fell while warming up for what was to be her last start of the season, and she has been struggling to regain her form ever since.
“She was just jogging along, very slow, and kicked her back legs up and lost it, fell on the track,” recalls Sparling. “She was sidelined for quite a while.”
For six weeks trainer Stanley Atkinson worked to restore the Astreos daughter’s health and confidence, and then dropped her into an Oct. 13 qualifier at Mohawk where she toured a track rated two seconds slower than normal in 2:01.3. Two weeks later Atkinson sent Val’s Vision to Rideau Carleton Raceway for the second last Trillium Series event, but once again the filly failed to fire and settled for a fourth-place finish, 10 lengths behind winner Yankee Augusta.
“She didn’t perform well up in Rideau at all,” says Sparling, who bred the winner of $28,515.
“After she won at Mohawk, (driver) Paul MacDonell said, “You have a very special horse here, give her one more start and put her away,'” he adds. “We don’t want to put her away without knowing that she’s 100 per cent.”
Val’s Vision will start from Post 1 in Friday’s fifth race and faces a tough group of fillies that includes the Oct. 26 Trillium division winners Appleoosa Hanover and Yankee Augusta from Posts 3 and 4.
While Sparling is guarded about the filly’s chances for a top five finish on Friday, he notes that there were more than a few high points to savour through the 2006 campaign. Among the most enjoyable was the newly formed partnership with Raspin and Jeffrey.
“Ken owns 25 per cent of the five that are racing, and Larry took half of Kenny’s 25 per cent on Val’s Vision,” explains Sparling. “They are both great guys.
“Larry is a former NHLer and he introduced me to a lot of his buddies over the summer. It was a lot of fun,” he adds.
Sparling, Raspin and Jeffrey — who was a member of the 1966-67 Stanley Cup winning Toronto Maple Leaf team — collected a Grassroots trophy when Val’s Vision won her July 22 division at Sudbury Downs, and Sparling and Raspin added three more over the course of the season. Luck Alice, the three-year-old half sister to Val’s Vision, won a Grassroots division at Quinte Exhibition Raceway on May 22 and three-year-old pacing colt Matty McGee won two regular season events and finished third in the Oct. 7 Grassroots Championship at Flamboro Downs.
“For me it’s been a long grind. I’ve been monkeying around for about 25 years,” says Sparling. “Now we’re sort of starting to get some decent horses. We had a pretty exciting summer.”
Val’s Vision will attempt to cap that exciting summer with a solid effort in the fifth race on Friday. Woodbine Racetrack’s first race rolls up behind the starting gate at 7:40 pm.
For complete entries please go to:
http://www.standardbredcanada.ca/entries/data/ewdbsfr.html#N5