GLOUCESTER, ON — Ten talented young trotting fillies will make their racing debut at Rideau Carleton Raceway on Sunday evening, competing in the first of three Trillium Series events on their freshman calendar.
Veteran trotting specialist George Zirnis will start a pair of fillies in the $72,343 event that have him looking forward to the 2004 season. Since early May, Jameson and Dream On Bernie have been showing signs that they could join the list of talented trotting lasses Zirnis has conditioned.
“You never know in March and April, but about the first of May they started to show me they might be a little bit special,” says the Elmira resident, who trained OSS standout Sharise Seelster to earnings of $339,757 in her two-year-old season. “I’m looking forward to racing both fillies because I think they might do some good.”
Jameson heads into the Trillium event off a second and a third-place finish in qualifying action at Mohawk Racetrack and will start from Post 6 on Sunday. Zirnis, who shares ownership on the Mr Lavec daughter with Tom Cousineau of Elmira, acquired the filly for $5,000 US at the Kentucky Standardbred Yearling Sale last fall.
“She was the very last horse to sell on the second night. I stuck around until 8 pm, there were only about 20 people left in the ring, and got her real reasonable,” recalls Zirnis. “She was good all winter. She trotted on and behaved and was always willing to do her work.”
Berndt Hanover daughter Dream On Bernie is the first foal of former Zirnis pupil Dreamfair Tierra, who earned $172,708 in the Ontario Sires Stakes program. The filly captured both of her early season qualifiers, the first by seven and a half lengths in 2:05.2 and the second by two and one-quarter lengths in 2:07.
“She is a real nice filly. She’s a lot like her mother, but she’s got a lot more brains. Her mother was kind of a high strung thing at two and three, but she is way more laid back, even a little bit lazy, which is a good thing,” says the trainer-driver. “She won both her qualifiers very easily. We haven’t reached the bottom of her yet.
Zirnis, Dennis and Janet Fairall of Windsor and Tanya Martin of Elmira own Dream On Bernie, who will start from Post 8 in Sunday’s Trillium contest.
“The eight-hole doesn’t bother me. She had the outside both times I baby raced her and she trotted off the wings just fine. If she’s as good as I think she is it won’t bother her,” says Zirnis. “I think the first time I raced Sharise Seelster, in a Trillium at Peterborough, she had the 8-hole.”
Zirnis’s duo and their peers will square off in the first race on Rideau Carleton Raceway’s 6:30 pm program Sunday.