LONDON, ON — Drawing the outside post in a $130,000 race is normally something that a driver likes to avoid, but when Jody Jamieson saw that he and Village Blitz had drawn outside for Friday night’s Ontario Sires Stakes Gold Final at Western Fair Raceway the young reinsman took it in stride.
With only five colts going to the gate in the last Gold Final of the season, Jamieson expects that he and Village Blitz will be able to find their way to the front without running into too much traffic.
“With the field of horses that are in there I don’t think it will be a problem,” says Jamieson. “At the very most we’ll be five lengths off the pace. And I can take him back or he can leave with the car, like most of my Dad’s horses can. There’s no pressure driving him.”
With Jamieson’s father Carl in the race bike, the Village Jiffy son posted an effortless 1:58.4 win in the Elimination round last week to serve notice that he was back to the early season form that captured him the $250,00 Battle of Waterloo at Elmira Raceway on Aug. 5. And while fans rated Village Blitz as their fourth choice, no one from the Jarvis-based Village Blitz Stable was surprised at the result.
“After the Battle of Waterloo he came up a little sick and I don’t think my Dad knew it because he raced him in the Flamboro Gold Elimination (Aug. 11) and he finished fifth,” explains Jamieson. “So Dad and the other owners decided right then to skip a few of the major events and give him a rest.”
Village Blitz did not see the racetrack again until Sept. 24 when he qualified at Mohawk, pacing his own mile in 1:57.3. From there the colt finished second in non-winners of three races company at Flamboro Downs on Oct. 2 and 9, and third at Georgian Downs in a similar class on Oct. 19 in preparation for last weekend’s Gold Elimination.
“We heard through the grapevine that (division leader) Sir Luck was not going to be here, so it was a good one to get ready for,” says the 25-year-old driver. “And he’s not an overly big horse, he’s long, but not real big so the half-mile track definitely suits him.”
All three of Village Blitz’s victories have been on half-mile tracks, but the colt is no slouch on a bigger surface either. In the Gold Series season opener at Windsor Raceway he finished second in his elimination and second in the Final. One week later he was third in Gold Elimination action at Woodbine Racetrack and finished fourth in the Final.
His early season success was one of the reasons trainer Carl Jamieson and his partners were able to give Village Blitz a mid-season break. After the Aug. 11 fifth-place effort he had already accumulated 95 points and secured a place in the season ending $300,000 Super Final.
If everything continues to go according to plan for Village Blitz, Mohawk Racetrack will be his next stop for the Super Final on Nov. 16 and then he will compete in the Canadian Breeders Championship on Nov. 30.
“They’re racing for almost half a million in the next four weeks at Mohawk,” notes Jamieson. “So we’ll try to end up second to Sir Luck in the last couple starts.”
But first Jamieson and Village Blitz have their sights set on Ontario Sires Stakes Gold in Race 12 on Western Fair Raceway’s 6:30 pm program Friday.