(Photo of driver Jody Jamieson and Calvin K courtesy of New Image Media)
Mohawk Racetrack hosted the first two-year-old Ontario Sires Stakes event of the season on Monday and the freshman pacing colts delivered a pair of impressive performances.
In the first $105,000 Gold Series division driver Jody Jamieson of Moffat, ON sent Calvin K to the front from Post 5 and the colt sailed through fractions of :27.2, :56.4 and 1:24.3 on his way to an uncontested 1:52.3 victory. Shadow Rouge finished three lengths back in second and Big Bad Bill was another length back in third.
“Jody just figured it was a short field, and he wanted to try and control it, or have him up close, if he could and not put him in a bad spot,” said trainer Tony O’Sullivan of Calvin K’s front end effort. “And it worked out.”
A half-brother to $1.5 million winner Mypanmar, Calvin K arrived in O’Sullivan’s barn in mid-May after spending the winter with Jeff Fout, the racehorse trainer for owner-breeder Winbak Farms of Chesapeake City, MD .
“Jeff had said that he had acted like he was a nice colt all winter and the first time I trained him you could tell that there was a fair bit of speed there,” noted O’Sullivan.
Prepping for Monday’s Ontario Sires Stakes event, Calvin K qualified at Mohawk on June 10 and raced in a two-year-old overnight event at the Campbellville oval on June 20, delivering off-the-pace victories in both. Those off-the-pace efforts were intentional steps in the Classic Card Shark son’s education, and O’Sullivan expects to see more of that as the season progresses.
“He’s probably a colt that’s going to need to race off the pace a little bit, he gets a little bit full of himself,” said the Puslinch, ON resident.
In addition to Calvin K’s victory, O’Sullivan also earned runner-up honours in the second division with Happy Trio, a Mach Three colt he owns in partnership with Domenic Chiaravalle of Hamilton and Lorne Keller of Exeter, ON.
“My little bull dog. He’s a stout colt,” said O’Sullivan with a chuckle. “He was pretty unassuming down to about 2:20, and then the first couple times we asked for a bit of speed you could just kind of tell that there was some there, and the more we trained him the more interested he got.”
Knowing he had two potential Gold colts in his barn, O’Sullivan put Calvin K in Jamieson’s hands and assigned Happy Trio to last year’s top OSS reinsman Sylvain Filion. In rein to the Milton, ON resident, Happy Trio won his June 10 qualifier and finished fourth to his stablemate in the June 20 overnight test.
On Monday Happy Trio finished second to heavy favourite Sports Column, who wrested control of the race from Happy Trio just after the :27.3 opening quarter and then sailed along to a :57 half and 1:25.1 three-quarters before reaching the finish one and one-quarter lengths on top in 1:52.1. Classic Pro rounded out the top three, making it a sweep by Winbak Farm-breds.
Campbellville resident Chris Christoforou Jr. piloted Sports Column to the win for trainer Blake MacIntosh of Cambridge, ON and Hutt Racing Stable of Paoli, PA.
“He was my best colt training down, but… I thought he was a pretty special horse, but you never know until you get them there, we’ve been fooled before,” said MacIntosh of the Sportswriter son.
MacIntosh prepped Sports Column with a pair of qualifiers at Mohawk, on June 10 and 17, and the colt won both. On June 27 the youngster, a $20,000 acquisition from the 2015 Lexington-Selected Yearling Sale, made his debut in an overnight event for two-year-olds, where things did not go quite as smoothly.
“He’d had the rail in both his qualifiers and then he was behind the car (Post 6) and he wouldn’t go up behind the car,” MacIntosh explained. “So he (Christoforou) backed him off, and then there was just no flow. It was just unfortunate luck in his first race.”
Sports Column and Christoforou still managed to salvage a second-place result, but the colt’s connections were delighted to see him return to form on Monday.
“Training down he was a very nice horse, hopefully, if everything goes right, we’ll have a great season with him,” said MacIntosh.
Sports Column and Calvin K will have their second shot at a Gold Series trophy when the program returns to Mohawk Racetrack on Saturday, July 16.
Tomorrow evening (July 5) the Campbellville oval welcomes the two-year-old pacing fillies for their Gold Series debuts. The pacing fillies will be featured in Races 8 and 9, with the action getting under way at 7:30 pm.
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