WINDSOR, ON — Three-year-old pacing colt Twin B Impact needs to be at the top of his game to extend his season beyond next Wednesday’s Grassroots event at Windsor Raceway, so trainer Philip Edwards has spent the last two weeks preparing the colt for the race of his life.

An exhaustive veterinary workup, an advance look at the Windsor Raceway oval, and some practice turning into the starting gate have been part of Edwards’s strategy to help Twin B Impact realise his full potential in time for the last regular season Grassroots event.

“Anything can happen; I’m cheering for him,” says the Windsor resident. “It depends if he’s got his game face on, or he’s there to play.”

In his last Grassroots start, Sept. 13 at Rideau Carleton Raceway in Ottawa, Twin B Impact delivered a fourth-place finish in the fastest division. Edwards was satisfied with the pacer’s performance in the 1:53.2 mile, but not with the aggravation the colt caused turning into the starting gate. Over the last two weeks the veteran horseman and his son David Edwards have spent some time schooling Twin B Impact in his pre-race manners, and they hope fans will see an improvement on Wednesday.

“He can be a stubborn little guy. He doesn’t like to turn when you go to the gate,” explains Edwards. “In Ottawa my son had to get somebody to turn him, so we’ve been working on that and he’s turning better at the farm.”

Edwards chose not to race the colt between the Rideau Carleton Grassroots and Wednesday’s contest, opting instead for a Sept. 26 qualifier at his local oval. Twin B Impact toured a Windsor oval rated two seconds slower than normal in 1:58, and Edwards hopes that mile was enough to set him up for the last Grassroots skirmish.

“We took him and qualified him the other day. He hadn’t raced since Ottawa and we figured we needed to go a pretty good trip with him,” notes Edwards, who conditions the colt for Arthur Slack of Rockwood, ON, Kenneth Slack of Cumbria, ENG and George Harrison and Robert Harrison of Lancashire, ENG.

The final element of Twin B Impact’s pre-race tune-up was a thorough veterinary evaluation, and Edwards says it illuminated a tender spot in the colt’s hip which has responded well to treatment.

Edwards’s three-pronged approach will be put to the test in the third $21,911 Grassroots event on Wednesday, when Twin B Impact and David Edwards will line up at Post 6 in a field of seven. Among the colts they will face are recent 1:53.2 winner Mint Smoothie from Post 4, and former Grassroots division winner Risky Rich from Post 5.

With two seconds and one fourth in his first four Grassroots outings, Twin B Impact sits 33 points below the current cut off for the top 16. The son of Camotion and Classie Girl needs a win to assure himself of a spot among the Grassroots Semifinalists, and a second to have a chance of squeaking into the post season.

“He’s got to have a trip,” acknowledges Edwards. “But he’s in there because he’s close to getting enough points for the Semifinal.”

Windsor Raceway fans can catch the three-year-old pacing colts in their final Grassroots battle starting at 7 pm next Wednesday, Oct. 3. The talented young pacers will be leaving it all on the track in Races 1, 2, 4, 6, and 9.

For complete entries please go to:

http://www.standardbredcanada.ca/entries/data/ewrfwe.html