REXDALE, ON — Woodbine Racetrack hosts the Ontario Sires Stakes version of the clash of the titans on Saturday night as the three-year-old pacing colts meet in Gold Series action for the third time this season.
Headlining the first division is Pacific Titan, who has spent as much time butting heads with North America’s best this season as he has his Ontario peers. The Camluck colt heads into the race off a runner-up finish to Mach Three in a three-year-old open event at Woodbine on July 27 and he recorded a fifth-place finish in the $1 million Meadowlands Pace Final on July 13.
John Grant of Hornby owns Pacific Titan, who has banked $205,434 from one win, three seconds and a pair of thirds in nine starts this season. Randy Waples will pilot the Bill Robinson trainee from Post 1 in the third race.
Leading the colts into the second Elimination is reigning Gold Final champ Armbro Warranty, who will also start from Post 1. The Village Jiffy son posted a fifth-place finish in the July 27 three-year-old open and earlier in the month he logged a three race win streak at Flamboro Downs, including a 1:52.1 track record equalling performance in a July 14 Flamboro Breeders division.
“I don’t do a lot with this colt. Before his last start (July 27) he had two weeks between races and I only jogged him about four times,” says trainer and part owner Fred Logan. “I’d rather get him ready for this race, because this one is more important.”
Logan shares ownership on Armbro Warranty with Petrina and Helen May Lawrence of Madison Heights, MI and Ronald Lesky of Hazel Park, MI, and so far the partners have resisted the offers that have been coming at them since the colt started to flex his muscles in the Gold Series this season.
“I’ve had some offers on him. I had one today actually,” says Dutton resident Logan. “But I have a couple of women owners and every time we get an offer they just kind of laugh. They’re not too interested in selling him.”
In nine starts this season Armbro Warranty has banked $131,222 for his owners, almost three times what he earned as a two-year-old, and Logan hopes there is more to come.
“I always said he was good. The reason he didn’t make more money last year was because he was always drawing outside post positions,” he explains. “But I think that’s helped him this year. We were always racing from the back of the field and he was getting stronger and stronger.
“Once we drew good we were able to put him on the front and he liked that. He’s pretty handy.”
Armbro Warranty can add half of the $56,562 purse to his bank account with a win in the eighth race on Sunday. The top five finisher’s from each elimination return to Woodbine Racetrack on Aug. 10 for their chance at $130,000 in the third Gold Final of their 2002 season.