OF METEORS ,COBRAS AND POLY

JOHN FORT, owner of Twilight Meteor, says the Plate favourite is still Plate bound.. (Photo courtesy Peachtree Racing)

OWNER FORT SAYS METEOR PLATE-BOUND

John Fort, owner of the high profile PEACHTREE STABLES in the United States, says his Canadian-bred colt TWILIGHT METEOR, the winterbook favourite for the Queen’s Plate, is going to have one more prep race before the June 24 classic.

That prep will come in the Straight Deal Stakes on May 19 at one-mile on the Belmont turf.

“He’s doing just fine, he was a little off form around the time of the Lane’s End (Stakes at Turfway Park),” said Fort about the Meteor’s uncharacteristically dull 6^th place finish as the favourite in the Lane’s End.

“You could barely see him late in the race that day because the (Polytrack) kickback caused a big cloud. After the race his trachea was simply caked with Polytrack fibres.”

Fort says his colt preferred the Keeneland Polytrack and would not want the horse to race over a Polytrack similar to that of Turfway’s.

“Hopefully he’ll rebound, he’s a very sound horse, no physical problems.”

Twilight Meteor is a compact, racy chestnut by Smart Strike – One Over Prime (With Approval) bred by Kinghaven Farms. The colt is trained by Todd Pletcher.

COBRA ON TRACK TOO

Scherer new trainer

The light grey stretch runner COBRADOR is headed to Woodbine for the Plate Trial Stakes and perhaps a date in the Plate itself on June 24.

Co-owner Roger Neubauer said yesterday the El Prado-Dynamite Diablo 3yo came out of his last-place finisher in the Crown Royal American Turf Stakes last week “fine” and was simply hindered by the very slow pace and the yielding turf course.

“The pace was slow, Calvin said he never really grabbed a hold of the course, he was just swimming in a bog.”

Corbador, also owned by Graph Racing (Jerry Brown) is on his way to be stabled at Arlington Park and new trainer Ritchie Scherer where he will train over the track’s Polytrack before coming for the June 3 Plate Trial.

GOOD THINGS COME IN 3’S

For the second time in this young Woodbine meeting, trainer ROBERT TILLER collected three wins on a card.

Last night, over a Polytrack that is much happier now that the temperatures are getting warmer (see the story on Poly below), Tiller sent out heavily favoured YOLIE (Menifee) to win the first race for allowance fillies, the winning machine know as KNOCKER (Evansville Slew) to win an allowance/optional claiming race and EXECUTIVE PRODUCER (Bold Executive) to win a maiden allowance race for Ontario-sired guys. Big money for the Tiller/DiGiulio/Edenvale and Very Dry team.

Jockey MICHELLE RAINFORD bagged a triple as well.

POLYTRACK WORK TO BEGIN SOON

Irwin Driedger, the boss of Woodbine’s Polytrack surface, is confident that re-waxing and the addition of jelly cable to the surface will finally make the track the on par with other Polytrack’s at Keeneland and Arlington.

“It’s still cold,” said Driedger. “But it’s warming up about half a degree each day so we’ll do all the re-waxing this month and start adding the jelly cable.”

Jelly cable is a sticky jelly substance from the casing of copper wire and is “sticky, it will grab to anything no matter what the temperature.”

Driedger explained that the wax covering the sand on Polytrack right now dries up in cold weather and simply does not hold the surface together, causing a loose track

“It loves the sun – imagine candle wax – if you heat it up it’s gooey and sticky, if it cools, it gets hard.”

The loose surface has been hard to a lot of horses to handle and has led to big kickback (helping front runners have better success) and strung-out fields that have been less that interesting for fans to bet on or watch.

“On Saturday I started to notice a difference in the track, it was getting better and it was a lot better on Sunday. It’s still the best thing that’s out there, it’s safe and hopefully we can make it fair and consistent.”

Driedger cited the large population of horses at Keeneland these days, even though that meeting ended last week, as the proof that the horsemen want Polytrack.

“I don’t know that our Polytrack will end up being as tight as Keeneland’s (horses were setting track records frequently there this spring) but the new wax will ensure the sand holds together.”

LEO SIZZLES - WORKOUT WATCH

LEONNATUS ANTEAS, the champion 2yo of last year who is on a crash course to get to the Queen’s Plate, sizzled four furlongs over the Woodbine training track in 47 1/5 yesterday morning.

Also working a half-mile on the training track was last year’s champion older mare, FINANCINGAVAILABLE – 52 3/5.

Stakes winning old guy CHRIS’S BAD BOY had his first work of the season with a 2 furlong zip in 23 2/5.

BARILKO, a 2yo sensation last year, went a bullet 5 furlongs on Polytrack in a sharp :59.

REXDALE FOLKS RALLY AROUND WOODBINE LIVE

A story in the TORONTO STAR today on WOODBINE LIVE!, yes, its still in the works, talks about the neighbourhood folks and their feelings about the expansion.

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/212057

Some answers to queries:

Readers should be able to view the Queen’s Plate nominations list on the Woodbine website under horsemen’s information – perhaps by tomorrow.

One reader questioned the claim by RARE FRIENDS by Mike Ambler – who is THE owner of the gelding, it was his money that was dropped in for the horse and Ambler has his horses at Windfields. Enough said.