Hopefully, by early June the harness racing scene will be back in action. Red Shores has allotted time slots for trainers to get their work done while adhering to social distancing and other strict health measures.
The breeding season is now upon us and broodmare owners are carefully selecting stallions for their mares.
I talked to Ian Moore when he was here a few weeks ago and he told me he has two Arthur Blue Chips in training and they are impressive. One is a colt and the other a filly. Arthur Blue Chip is standing his first season at Bruce Wood’s Woodmere Farms and the Shadow Play stallion is a gorgeous looking individual.
Woodmere also stands Rollwithitharry, whose first crop in 2019 produced the Atlantic Breeders crown two-year-old winner, and another great looker in Stonebridge Terror, a high-percentage sire who has to his credit the top two-year-old Half Cut.
The Bettors Delight horse Malicious led Canada and North America three-year-olds in four categories, including percentage of three-year-olds to the races and percentage of three-year-olds with sub 2:00 records. He’s standing at Windemere Farms along with Articulator, sire of such standouts as Atlantic sire champions Ramblinglily and Woodmere Oleksiak.
Jamie MacKinley’s J J Farms in Cornwall has a couple of interesting studs in Hilarious Halo p, 1:48:3 ($475,000), the fastest stallion in the region and whose first crop will race this summer, plus Tobago Cays (Rocknroll Hanover, $800,000) who had two stakes winners from a small test crop of three last summer in Delaware. Tobago is out of the great Bunny Lake, which is interesting indeed.
Next week, I’ll look at HowMac Farms star Source of Pride, Robin Burke’s highly regarded Shanghai Phil and the Ron Gass Farm in Cornwall plus other stallions.
In closing, here’s a funny story. I asked taximan George Larter how his three-year-old The Fox was training under the care of Brendon Curran. “The colt looks good, but they’re trying to convert me into a Tory,” laughed George.
Good luck with that one!
By Fred MacDonald
Reprinted with permission of The Journal Pioneer