SHARPEN THOSE PENCILS

WACKY WOODBINE
Pick 7 up to $142,0000

More than $60,000 was wagered into the PICK 7 at Woodbine yesterday but events got off to a sour beginning for a lot of folks when 3 to 5 shot DANCE WITH DOVES (A.P Indy filly and first foal of Queen's Plate winning mare Dancethruthedawn) was a badly beaten 2nd in the very slow 2nd race, the first leg of the bet.
The winner, SERENADING, another A.P. Indy filly, won by half a dozen lengths for JOhn and Glenn Sikura, who bred the daughter of top mare Daijin.
High percentage trainer Norm DeSouza won again, with TUNERUP MAGIC in the second race, a favourite, and heavily favoured RED BIRKIN, trained by Roger Attfield, won the 4th race.
Then things got messy again.
A giant field of B level maiden allowance fillies - 14 of them - was too tricky to process for a lot of us but the winner was the ONLY 4-year-old in the race - HOLY ROSE, a Kentucky bred Touch Gold filly from the Stronach Stables and trainer Sean Smullen.
The favourite was only 4 to 1 (Bear's Swan) and she finished third.
On what seemed to be an outside biased surface, WONNESOMORE rallied very wide around the last turn to win the 6th for trainer Sandra Dominguez and owners Frank Coulter and Luz Roach. The Wonneberg Ontario-bred gelding made a five star appearance before the race.
Sam-Son's heavily favoured SAIL FROM SEATTLE picked things up for that barn when he won the 7th, an allowance optional claiming to remain undefeated in 2007 but then TIMBER DOE, a longshot in the program but bet down to 3 to 1 by post time, romped in the turf allowance 8th race.

Expect somewhere in the neighbourhood of at least $200,000 in the pot for the Pick 7 today.
Also expect it to carry-over. To these eyes, the races are very, very tough, wide open events on Polytrack and turf.

A goofy race yesterday was the 9th in which usual stopper GOLDMART FLASH led through 22 flat and 44 1/5 and won by a long margin for $20,000 claimers. The gelding is owned by Goldmart Farms and trained by Sid Attard.


SATURDAY SATURDAY

What to do in the LADY ANGELA STAKES? (Yes, to the reader who said the race was named after the mare that E.P. Taylor brought over from Europe and later foaled Nearctic, the sire of Northern Dancer.
The Ontario-sired sprint for fillies features the return of multiple stakes winner MIDNIGHT SHADOW, who got slower as her 2yo season went on but she showed a lot of speed and grit.
There is lots of speed in today's stake but the quickest of the quick is SIWA, the Knob Hill Farms homebred by Alydeed out of Zahara by Storm Cat.
If you are looking for a stretch runner in the race - perhaps GRANDY'S GLORY could surprise since the intentions today seem to be to take her just off the pace. She is a good enough filly to beat this field.

QUEEN'S PLATE NEWS

Stronach Stables' HIGH ACT could go directly into the Plate instead of racing in the Plate Trial and that would mean the colt would be coming into the race off a layoff of more than 3 months...Patrick Husbands wa apparently pencilled in to ride Chiefswood Farms' MARKDALE in the Plate Trial but, as the regular rider for Mark Casse, is now going to be on MARCHFIELD for that stable in the Trial. Todd Kabel is listed for Markdale.