LONDON, ON — Friday is the opening night of Western Fair Raceway’s fall meet and the line-up of trotters and pacers heading for the London oval is unrivalled by any in recent memory.
Sixty-four of the finest two-year-old racehorses ever produced in Ontario are headed for Western Fair to compete in the $240,000 Semifinal round of the Grassroots Championship. The youngsters have battled through six regular season events for a berth in the lucrative Grassroots post season and will be pulling out all the stops to ensure they advance through to next week’s $400,000 Championship.
Sitting atop the two-year-old pacing filly point standings is Peter Davis’ Cammissy, who posted two wins, two seconds, one fourth and one fifth-place finish in six Grassroots starts for 163 points. The Camluck daughter has drawn the trailing Post 8 in her Semifinal and Davis is hoping the return to a half-mile oval will work in the diminutive filly’s favour.
“She’s had a pretty good campaign. She’s maybe not as fast as some of them, but she’s been pretty good this year for us, and she’s pretty good on a half-mile track,” says Davis, who bred and owns Cammissy in partnership with his wife Ellen, son Hugh and daughter-in-law Rita Davis, all of Arva. “Her mother (Keystone Hyatt) held the track record at Western Fair for years, she was a good half-miler too.”
Cammissy heads into Friday’s battle off a fourth-place finish in the last Grassroots event at Sarnia’s Hiawatha Horse Park on Oct. 16 and Davis expects her to be one step sharper after that outing.
“She had some sickness in Flamboro (Oct. 3). She finished third in a Trillium division I thought she should have won so I scoped her right afterward and she scoped sick,” explains the veteran trainer. “So I was quite happy with the way she raced in Sarnia. She didn’t finish quite as strong as I thought she would, but she hadn’t trained for two weeks, so she got a good training there and hopefully she’ll be better this week.”
While Davis looks forward to trying out Western Fair Raceway’s newly banked half-mile oval, Dan Creighton will be gnawing on his finger nails when the two-year-old trotting colts roll in behind the gate for the first Semifinal event of the night.
“I’m probably a little nervous about being on a half-mile, he’s definitely better on a big track,” says the trainer and co-owner of Nichols Lavec. “I put the trotting hopples on him mainly because I was worried about racing him on a half-mile track.”
Nichols Lavec wrapped up the regular season in third spot in the two-year-old trotting colt point race with two wins and two seconds in four Grassroots starts. He will start from the advantageous Post 1 in the third race and Creighton hopes the gelding has developed enough maturity to take advantage of the inside post.
“With a green trotter you always worry about the rail because they can get bunched up leaving out of there, but he’s got some experience now so hopefully he’ll be all right,” says the Strathroy resident.
Creighton trains the gelding for his partners in the Danterra Racing Stable, Gerard Henry of London and Dave Hudson and Terry Hudson of Strathroy and Randy Kerr will handle driving duties in Friday’s third race.
Three races later Island Zeeker will be attempting to overcome Post 6 as he duels for a berth in next week’s $100,000 two-year-old pacing colt Championship.
“The position is not very good, but it looks on paper like maybe he’s in the easier division,” says the colt’s trainer Scott McNiven. “But then you can never tell, it might go two seconds faster.”
Working in the Albert Albert son’s favour is the gate speed he has exhibited on more than occasion this season, en route to accumulating a record of three wins, one second and one third in five Grassroots starts and sole ownership of third-place in the division standings.
“He has pretty good gate speed, and he can also race from behind,” notes Putnam resident McNiven, who trains the colt for owner-breeder Donald Douglas of Ingersoll. “And he has been racing on a half-mile most of the summer.”
Western Fair Raceway raises the curtain on its fall meet at 7:30 pm on Friday and turns the glare of the spotlight on Ontario’s top two-year-olds in Races 3 through 10. The top four finishers from each of the Semifinals will return to the London oval next Friday, Oct. 31 for their respective $100,000 Grassroots Championships, a featured part of the newly renovated Raceway and Slot Parlour’s grand opening festivities.