WINDSOR, ON — Since fans last caught the three-year-old trotting colts in Ontario Sires Stakes Gold Series action things have been heating up in the highly competitive division. Several colts have reeled off miles in 1:55 or better and there will be some gifted youngsters lined up on Windsor Raceway’s starting gate Sunday evening that were not present for the sophomore season opener in May.
“There are a lot of horses that have really stepped up and gone big miles,” says Paul Shakes, who trains May Gold Final winner and last year’s Ontario Sires Stakes champion Meadowview Sunny. “They are a very competitive bunch.”
Meadowview Sunny is among the colts that have taken their game to a new level since the May Gold Series at Woodbine Racetrack. The Classic Adam son enjoyed a three-week vacation then requalified with an easy mile at Mohawk Racetrack on June 10. Six days he later he was entered in an overnight event at Woodbine where he scorched around the five-eighths mile oval in 1:55.3, getting a textbook trip behind the pacesetter before springing out in the stretch to score the two and a quarter length victory.
“We were pleased with the way he raced. We’ve been waiting for a trip like that since last year; for the chance to race in a hole with someone to carry him to the top of the stretch,” says Shakes. “It was very, very impressive, the way he did it, and as easy as he did it.”
Meadowview Sunny and driver Doug Brown will start from Post 2 in the seventh race on Windsor’s 6:30 pm program and Shakes is expecting another solid effort from the gelding, who has developed into a more versatile racehorse this season.
“He has changed a lot mentally. He’s a lot smarter racehorse now. Last year he would like to leave, but this year he will relax off the gate,” says the Stayner resident, who shares ownership on Meadowview Sunny with breeder Charles Reid of Orono. “He’s a little more of a complete racehorse, which helps down the road.”
The relaxed attitude Meadowview Sunny has developed did not come about by accident. Shakes and his son Brad worked long and hard with the trotter through the winter to get him to the point where Brown can choose more than one route to the winner’s circle.
“When we were training him we trained with two or three horses, always training him off the back end, taking him off the start and putting him in a hole,” explains Shakes. “We worked fairly hard at it and now he can go to the first quarter in :27 and the next quarter in :32, and do the same thing in a hole. Last year maybe he’d be wanting to climb a little to get out if somebody backed the fractions off like that, but this year he’ll sit there.”
Meadowview Sunny’s Gold Final win at Woodbine on May 18 was tinged with sadness because his dam Frisky Mitchelle had been dangerously ill in the week leading up to it, and Sunday’s event will also be bittersweet for Reid and Shakes because the 23-year-old mare finally succumbed on Tuesday to the intestinal trauma she suffered giving birth to an Angus Hall filly earlier this spring.
“She had to be put down,” says Shakes. “She was down at Guelph with her intestines all turned and she didn’t make it. She hadn’t been right since she had the filly.”
A strong performance by Meadowview Sunny would go along way toward lifting his owners’ spirits. To accomplish a third straight victory the gelding will have to best seven other gifted trotters including Robert McIntosh trainee Wireless Image from Post 5. La Salle resident McIntosh shares ownership on the Balanced Image son, who heads into Sunday’s contest off a Flamboro Breeders win on June 5 and a runner-up performance at Hiawatha Horse Park on June 14, with CSX Stables of Liberty Center, OH and Michael Kohler of Sterling Heights, MI.
McIntosh also sends out last year’s Super Final champion Ethen Seelster in his first start of the season. The Mr Lavec son, owned by McIntosh. CSX Stables and Dave Boyle of Bowmanville, qualified twice at Mohawk Racetrack in recent weeks and will start from Post 3 in the second $52,617 elimination.
Racing gets under way at 6:30 pm at Windsor Raceway on Sunday and fans will be treated to the sophomore trotting colt speed show in Races 7 and 9. The top four finishers from each elimination, plus one fourth-place finishers drawn by lot, will return to Windsor’s five-eighths mile oval on Sunday, July 6 for their second $130,000 Gold Final.