CLINTON, ON — Clinton Raceway wraps up its 2004 Ontario Sires Stakes season on Sunday with eight Grassroots divisions for the record setting two-year-old pacing fillies.

On Civic Holiday Monday at Dresden Raceway the freshman fillies lowered the track record not once, but two times, with division leader Witness To Fame burning her name into the history books with a 1:57.1 victory.

“Last week’s mile sort of impressed a lot of people,” says trainer Bud Sinclair of the filly’s record setting effort. “She was just flowing along first up and looked like she was going to be an easy second until he (Dave Wall) pulled the (ear) plugs. She made up a lot of ground.”

Stratford resident Sinclair and partner Dr. Norman Amos of St. Marys acquired Witness To Fame for $8,000 at last fall’s Forest City Yearling Sale. The pair were attracted to the filly because she is a daughter of Apaches Fame, like Amos’s great mare Odies Fame, and like that filly Witness To Fame was a handful to work with as a youngster.

“To break her she was crazy,” recalls Sinclair. “She was good on the track, but in the barn putting a harness on her you really had to watch her. Every time you harnessed her it was like her first time.

“She got over it about a month before she qualified. She’s like an old horse now.”

Sinclair qualified the filly on June 10 at Hiawatha Horse Park where she delivered an impressive 2:02.1 performance over a rain soaked track rated two seconds slower than normal. At Georgian Downs on June 22 she kicked off her career with a fourth-place finish in a Trillium Series division won by two-time Gold Elimination winner Ingrid Bergrin, then captured the first of three Grassroots events at Hanover Raceway on July 3.

Another fourth in the Trillium Series at Windsor Raceway on July 14 and then consecutive Grassroots victories at Woodstock Raceway on July 24 and Dresden Raceway Aug. 2 cemented Witness To Fame’s status as one of the division’s top dogs.

“She seems to be pretty versatile. She’s won off the front and she won first up last week,” notes Sinclair, adding, “And she’s never been tired. She doesn’t know where the end is.”

Witness To Fame and driver Ray McLean, Jr. will make their bid for a fourth straight Grassroots victory from Post 5 in the third race on Sunday. The two-year-old pacing fillies are featured in Races 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10 and 11 on Clinton Raceway’s 1:30 pm program.