HANOVER, ON — Matthew Panos can be forgiven if he is a shade nervous about Saturday night’s two-year-old pacing colt Grassroots event at Hanover Raceway.

When he steers J M Albert onto the racetrack in the third Grassroots division, the 24-year-old will be making his Ontario Sires Stakes driving debut, and his first pari-mutuel start since 2002, in front of a grandstand packed with family and friends.

“It’s my first drive in a stake race,” says the Hanover resident. “Actually, it’s the first drive for me this year in an overnight. “Everybody will be there — Mom, Dad, brothers, sisters — no pressure, eh.”

Panos is not entirely rusty, he and J M Albert have toured the Hanover oval several times in the last month, posting one third and one second in qualifying action. And if his statistics are anything to go by the young reinsman is no slouch in the race bike. In his last year of racing he made 12 starts and posted two wins and three thirds for a respectable average of .306.

The pair will tackle the Grassroots colts from Post 8 in the third of five divisions and Panos admits he was hoping to land somewhere other than the trailing post.

“I don’t know how he’s going to be from there. I wanted him to draw any other hole than that one,” says the young horseman, who also bred and owns J M Albert. “He’s good at following horses so I think he’ll be all right, but the one doesn’t look like it can leave so I don’t know how well we’ll get away. He’s got back half speed so it all depends on how the race unfolds.

“It’s a horse race, we’ll just have to play it by ear.”

Trained by Panos’s father James, who resides in Elmwood, J M Albert learned his early lessons at Hanover Raceway and was a quick study.

“He broke in really easy. He’s a very smart colt. He did everything right from Day 1,” recalls Panos. “He’s still green and still learning, but he does pretty near everything right.”

In his June 25 qualifier, J M Albert made a rare error en route to a second-place finish in the 2:03.4 mile, but Panos thinks he will be better this weekend after a series of equipment changes.

“I had him out early, I wanted to test him out, but he put a step in on the last turn so I lost some ground. I think he hit a knee,” says the driver. “We’ll try to have him a little better for this week. We changed his shoes, put aluminium shoes on front, and took his hopples in a little.”

A little better could put the colt in line for a piece of the $21,270 purse in the sixth race on Hanover Raceway’s Saturday evening program. The other freshman pacing colt divisions are slated as Race 2, 4, 8, and 10, with the first race going postward at 7:20 pm. For a complete list of entries please go to:

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