ONE, TWO, THREE

EASY AS 1 – 2 – 3

If you haven’t registered yet for the WOODBINE ENTERTAINMENT – THE SCORE handicapping contest for every Wednesday night racing from now until October, you must do so!

The game is very fan friendly and offers an easy way to go through and pick your horses for each race on the card.

Lots of information (including what percentage of people have picked a certain horse) is provided on the horses (sire, dam, etc.).

Go to www.thescore.ca/fantasy and get in the game!

ETERNAL SEARCH TONIGHT

The wonderful Canadian racemare ETERNAL SEARCH is honoured tonight in stakes form.

The 7^th race on the 8-race card is named for the jet black mare and is an Ontario-sired event for 3yo fillies.

YOU WILL LOVE ME (One Way Love), one of the province’s better Ontario-sired gals, is 3 for 5 this season and has won two restricted stakes.

She just won the Passing Mood over the turf that was a bit less than firm on July 25.

Bill Jones’ homebred’s main competition will come from Sam-Son Farms’ MOON PATH (Perigee Moon), who was wacked off stride on the turn of her latest, and QUITE A KNIGHTMARE, who was just 3^rd in an aopen allowance race for owner/breeder Huntington Stud Farm.

The first 2 races on the card are turf allowance events, while the 3^rd race is a maiden special weight (B Level) for 2yo’s.

A solid card for a Wednesday evening and for the first night of the 123 contest (see above).

SCOREBOARD

RAMSAMMY TOPS JOCKS

CASSE TOPS TRAINERS

Jockeys

EMILE RAMSAMMY 75

*TYLER PIZARRO 72

PATRICK HUSBANDS 70

EMMA-JAYNE WILSON 61

DAVID CLARK 55

Trainers

MARK CASSE 42

ROBERT TILLER 39

ABRAHAM KATRYAN 33

SID ATTARD 32

READE BAKER 31

DRIVING MISS BABY

Bloodstock agent talks about truck training in Canada

from the Blood-Horse

Commentary: Truckin'
By Dan Kenny

The 2-year-old sale catalog contained the usual legalese regarding the conditions of sale. It also guaranteed the 14 entrants had received no medication or growth hormones other than worming and vaccinations. Buyers were eligible to a substantial refund of their purchase price if the horse did not win a race by the end of its 4-year-old campaign. X-rays were provided at no cost to the buyer. And one more thing…the juveniles had been ridden or experienced truck training every day except Sundays for the previous six months.

Truck training?

Prominent Canadian horseman Dick Bonnycastle had a notion in the fall of 2004 to import a batch of inexpensive yearlings and auction them off as 2-year-olds. The idea was to inject some new blood in the province of Alberta while anticipating construction of a new track in Calgary.

Bonnycastle dispatched Hall of Fame jockey Eddie Delahoussaye and longtime consultant Tony Goswell to various sales to round up suitable stock. The horses were then shipped to Bonnycastle’s Harlequin Ranch and manager Dwayne Hayworth.

Hayworth had convinced his boss that young horses could be brought to racing fitness with a regimen that included truck training. Four horses at a time were tethered to a vehicle and exercised at controlled speed by the driver. It’s a bit like a coach-and-four, with an SUV instead of a coach.

Sale day arrived in May 2005, and a curious crowd of 200 witnessed a one-furlong breeze-up on the Harlequin Ranch training track. We came up short a flagman and Eddie D. graciously volunteered for the role. The author was recruited to serve as auctioneer from the back of a pickup truck.

Barbecue and Bloody Marys put the potential bidders in a mellow mood, and the first horse led in was a gray filly by Real Quiet out of Canderic, by Runaway Groom.

Most of the spectators were locals, but trainer Jean Spence journeyed 500 miles from Vancouver to attend. She had tipped me off pre-sale that she fancied the gray filly and had a budget of $15,000. That bid was raised to $16,000. Cajoled into a $500 bump, Spence took home a filly, now named Real Candy, who would win the Canadian grade III British Columbia Breeders’ Cup Oaks at Hastings Racecourse. Fresh from a second in a Hastings stakes Aug. 6, Spence has shipped to Woodbine with an eye to turf racing, which is unavailable in Western Canada.

Minutes later, Hip No. 3 strode into the ring, the only horse in the sale with a reserve price. The filly by Vicar—Episode, by Kris S., failed to attract a bid of $25,000 and Bonnycastle’s California trainer Paddy Gallagher bought her in for that figure.

Vestrey Lady is her name and she captured the Canadian grade III Royal North Stakes at Woodbine Aug. 6, boosting her earnings to $480,913. Her dam is a half-sister to Mr. Greeley. When Street Sense showed up in the family, her breeding value soared to new heights.

No. 5 also turned out to be a stakes performer, a Kiridashi colt purchased by active Alberta owner Danny Dion.

Two stakes winners and a stakes-placed horse from 14 entries proves the point Hayworth and Bonnycastle were trying to make.

“My dad used to train his mare the same way on the farm years ago,” said Hayworth. “It’s not like we’re inventing anything new. What I find works best is that the horses use a more natural stride without a rider. And we can do more with them, sometimes going three, four miles on our one-mile track.”

Bonnycastle serves as chairman of the Jockey Club of Canada and has horses in training all over the world. He is not averse to trying something new. After all, one of his trainers is Michael Dickinson.

Delahoussaye offered a rational explanation for the project’s success. “For the price range we were dealing with, there was no sense vetting them,” he said. “Tony and I would wait until we saw one we liked and we’d go try to buy it. Vestrey Lady had some X-ray issues and a partnership was being dissolved as well. Lots of these OCDs people back away from don’t end up bothering them when they race.”

As it turns out, the Calgary racetrack has stalled for the time being. Bonnycastle’s neighborly gesture may lead others to emulate his success. Either way, the particpants said they had a lot of fun while beating the odds. Vestrey Lady is now a filly worth probably a seven-figure sum.

Does this mean that Bonnycastle intends to, well, keep on truckin’?

“You bet I do,” he said.

Dan Kenny is a bloodstock agent and partner in Four Star Sales.

Copyright © 2007 The Blood-Horse, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Monashee will make appearance at Hastings

Trainer is prepared to play waiting game

Dennis Feser, Vancouver Sun

Published: Wednesday, August 29, 2007

After nine consecutive stakes wins over two seasons -- six at Hastings Racecourse and three at Northlands Park -- Ole Nielsen's Monashee could be expected to be pointed somewhere else.

But the young grey mare will be back at Hastings for her next engagement, whether it takes four weeks or seven.

In what may have been her toughest outing in two years -- at least in terms of winning margin -- Monashee won by 11/2 lengths in Saturday's $100,000 City of Edmonton Distaff at Northlands Park by covering the 11/16 miles in 1:451/5. Yielding the lead briefly at the half, Monashee sprinted into a clear advantage for jockey Dave Wilson, who hand-rode her down the lane in holding Culpeper Moon safe.

Trained by Tracy McCarthy, the five-year-old Kentucky-bred daughter of Wolf Power paid $2.80 on a $2 win ticket in winning for the 15th time in 20 career starts. Her 11th stakes win was worth $60,000 and increased her total to over $600,000.

"We'll nominate [for the Delta Colleen] and see what we get [for a weight assignment]," said McCarthy. "They want us to go back there [Edmonton] for the Speed To Spare [against males] but I think we'll keep her with her own group. If we have to go seven weeks [for the scale weight Ballerina] we will.

"The important thing she was bucking and squealing after her race. She's a very happy and sound horse."

LARGE PRINT: Footprint ended a three-year drought by Alberta-based runners Saturday in the $300,000 Canadian Derby at Northlands, scoring a 11/2-length triumph over the maiden Gandolf.

It was the third win in a row for Footprint, a Kentucky-bred Gold Case gelding owned by his trainer, Joan Petrowski, Derek Milen and Elwin Page. Footprint dictated the pace under Real Simard, keeping a head in front of the runner-up before drawing away in the final strides to get the 13/8 miles in 2:193/5. A $12,000 purchase at sale, Fooprint earned $180,000 on Saturday, which was just short of his take from his first four wins from 12 starts.

Hastings racing secretary Lorne Mitchell talked to Petrowski and said she was noncommital about sending Footprint to the B.C. Derby on Sept. 23. Since Hastings sent its best horse, Monashee, to Northlands, it would seem only fair to ship the best horse in Edmonton to Vancouver.

FINALITY: Lois and R.J. Bennett's Rosada advanced from the outside for Mario Gutierrez and drew off by six lengths to capture Saturday's $54,969 Lassie for two-year-old fillies at Hastings. Rosada marked the second straight win in the division for trainer Barb Heads, who saddled Remarkable Miss to win the B.C. Cup Debutante earlier this month. Both Rosada and Remarkable Miss are from the first crop of the Dehere sire Finality.

CLAIM FAME: There's no question what horse has been the claim of the meeting. Star Prospector, haltered for $25,000 by trainer Terry Jordan for Bob Cheema from his maiden win in mid-July, has won back-to-back stakes, the B.C. Cup Nursery and Sunday's New Westminster with Chad Hoverson up.

NOMINEES: The 2006 horse of the year in B.C. and Sovereign Award winner as older horse, True Metropolitan, is among 18 nominated for Monday's S.W. Randall Plate. Sir Gallovic, who made an impressive local bow earlier this month, is among 18 nominated to the $50,000 Derby Trial, scheduled for Sunday, while seven three-year-old fillies are nominated to Saturday's Hong Kong Jockey Club.

dfeser@png.canwest.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2007