Machapelo pulled off a 26-1 upset with a 1:54.4 maiden-breaking score in the $300,000 Battle Of Waterloo for two-year-old pacing colts during Industry Day on Monday at Grand River Raceway.
Driver Scott Zeron sent the homebred son of Mach Three-Capelo Rose first over from third and cruised to victory over Two Guys and his father, driver Rick Zeron, with heavy favourite Warrawee Needy (Carl Jamieson) rallying wide from the backfield after an overland trip for third.
Machal Angelo (J.R. Plante) was the first to fire off the gate from Post 3 and landed the lead ahead of Two Guys and Machapelo while elimination winner Czar Seelster (Mark MacDonald) made a break leaving to the outside.
Machal Angelo posted the opening quarter in :27.1 while the other elimination winner, Warrawee Needy, moved underway from the backfield.
As the field passed the half in :56.1, Zeron and Machapelo launched their attack from third and forged ahead down the backstretch. The fourth-place finisher in his elimination reached three-quarters in 1:24.4 and charged home to prevail by more than three lengths for the first time in five career starts.
"I was confident in his abilities to definitely be up close to the racing and finish top three for me," commented Zeron after the victory. "Carl's horse [Warrawee Needy] is an outstanding horse, I'll see what happened when I watch the replay, but I was looking for him down the backside. I could only hear my dad coming at me and I was just ecstatic with the performance of my horse. He's such a handy horse that you can do whatever you want with him and I knew having a horse like that to drive was definitely going to put me in a spot where I could be tough.
"I was hoping for a nice second over trip as everybody would kind of hope for," continued the 22-year-old resident of Oakville, Ont. "I was told don't come first up with this horse, he's not good first up so good thing I avoided that and went with what my gut said there. And then when I pulled him first up he was all game. When he cleared to the front, he grabbed on a little bit more and tried to take off on me and I was just ecstatic with his effort."
The victory in the Battle Of Waterloo was Zeron's biggest stakes win to date.
"This is such an exciting win to have and to have all these fans out here and kind of be an upset winner, it's a great feeling," said the former Battle Of Belles winner.
Mike Keeling trains Machapelo for Linda Toscano and owner Enviro Stables Ltd. of South Hampton, New York.
"I love the four-hole, it's a great spot and four is my lucky number," noted the Cambridge, Ont. conditioner. "Anything but eight was going to be good with me.
"When the gate sprung and I saw we were going to get forward position I thought we were going to be okay," said Keeling. "I thought we'd end up sitting fourth. He's just a horse that you would prefer not to go first up with, but in that kind of race that's why I'm in the paddock and he [Scott Zeron] is out here on the track. A lot of things happen out here. We're just thrilled. Linda Toscano kept this horse up -- she gets all the credit. She got him ready and told me he's a nice horse and just needs a caretaker for the next six months so that's what we're doing and she's a hell of a horse trainer."
Keeling said the colt will head to the next Ontario Sires Stakes Gold event at Flamboro Downs. Eliminations take place next Sunday.
"There's a Gold next week at Flamboro and then I think, given my choice, I wouldn't tackle the Metro and that. I'm not sure he's going to reach with those big strong horses on a big track."
Machapelo returned $56.40 for the upset.
The Mark Austin-trained Jettison ($11.20) and driver Paul MacDonell rallied home off cover to prevail over favourite True To Mach and Phil Hudon in a career-best 1:57.1 in the $30,000 consolation. Who Doesnt and Joe Hudon Jr. finished third. The gelded son of Jeremes Jet-Pizzacato, now two-for-five in his career, is owned by Daniel Smith of London, Ont. Jeff Roberts of Manotick, Ont., Don Roberts of Dresden, Ont., and Bill Boden of Strathroy, Ont.
Stuart Sowerby guided Your Beautiful to a 1:56.1 victory over the three elimination winners in the $150,000 Battle Of Belles for two-year-old pacing fillies. Eat Me Up, Mindsweeper and Classy Lane Rose followed the homebred daughter of Your Nemesis-Beautiful Girl under the wire.
Leaving from Post 4, Sowerby sent Your Beautiful to command early on, but gave way to Regal Attitude (Randy Waples) at the :27.2 first quarter mark. Regal Attitude rolled to the top from third and led the field to the half in :56.
Eat Me Up (Doug McNair) then moved underway from fourth flushing out Your Beautiful from the pocket down the backstretch. As she swept to command at the 1:25.4 third quarter station, track record holder Mindsweeper (Sylvain Filion) rallied three-wide from the backfield.
Your Beautiful opened up a two length lead around the final turn and maintained her momentum to the wire to score her third win in five career starts. The final margin of victory was three and a half lengths.
"She's a really tough filly. I've loved her from day one when I first drove her," said Sowerby, who earned his biggest career win to date. "I was hoping I could lead the inside three and maybe even let the eight [Mindsweeper] go if she was there, but she never came. Randy came pretty hard so I kind of had to let him go. I wanted to get out because Randy didn't look like he was going to take me when we went around the turn so I pulled the pocket early. I could of looked stupid, but it worked out."
Your Beautiful is trained by Stephen Gillard, who shares ownership with Marilyn Gillard of Tavistock, Ont.
"This winter he [Stephen] asked me to drive an amazing colt of his and he won and it's just gone from there," said Sowerby of the partnership. "We've just had success after success. He just does a great job with them -- the homebreds."
Your Beautiful paid $7.10 to win as the 5-2 second choice in the field.
Sauble Hill Farms’ homebred filly Sauble Claire ($6.70) was a coast-to-coast winner in the $20,000 consolation with Trevor Henry in the sulky. The popular daughter of L H Stryker-Noble Duchess was a 1:57.1 winner with the Carl Jamieson-trained and driven Flight Delay following her under the wire four lengths behind and Apach Of Luck, with Scott Zeron in the bike, rounding out the top three. The time of the mile matched her lifetime mark, set in her career debut seven starts ago.
A handful of Preferred events were also contested in between the Battles, resulting in multiple front end winning performances.
Kashs Caviar ($5.10) went wire-to-wire to win the $15,000 Preferred 2 Trot by five lengths in 1:56.2 for the Baillargeon brothers. The four-year-old Sjs Caviar-Ocala Kash gelding was driven to victory by Mario Baillargeon for trainer Ben Baillargeon and owners Slaughter Racing Stable LLC of Prospect, Kentucky and Wayne Zollars of Mt. Vernon, Ohio.
Got The Munchies ($11.30) advanced to the lead from Post 7 and never looked back en route to a 1:55 victory in the $12,000 Fillies & Mares Preferred 3 Pace for the Davis duo. Billy Davis Jr. drove the six-year-old Camluck-Landfair Caveat mare to victory for his father, trainer Bill Davis, and owners Jeffrey and Debbie Elchuk of Surrey, B.C.
Indiana Hall ($3.20) pulled the pocket after the opening quarter and cruised to a four length triumph in 1:58.1 in the $12,000 Preferred 2 Trot with Trevor Henry in the sulky for trainer Ian Downey and the S S G Stables of North Boston, New York. The consistent eight-year-old son of Striking Sahbra-Iverlochy now boasts 18 top three performances in 23 seasonal starts.
Racy Gal Hanover ($3.80) also delivered a front end score for team Baillargeon, stopping the clock in 1:54.1 in the $15,000 Fillies & Mares Preferred 2 Pace. Santo Vena of Brampton, Ont. and Nunzio Vena of Bolton, Ont. share ownership of the four-year-old Modern Art-Raptture Hanover mare.
Fresh off his Battle Of Waterloo win, Scott Zeron guided the Wayne Preszcator pupil Part Shark ($9.20) to a 1:54.1 decision in the $12,000 Preferred 3 Pace. The five-year-old gelded son of Four Starzzz Shark-Pop Art advanced to the lead from fourth after the half and held off Donegald Gerald and Tony Kerwood by a head for the win for the Secret Weapon Stables of Waterloo, Ont.
For results from Monday's harness racing card, click on the following link: Monday Results - Grand River Raceway.
There is no way Warrawee
There is no way Warrawee Needy was sick, in fact i would argue that he was as sharp as a tack, he probably set a world's record for a mile and a quarter over a half mile track.
I wonder if Warrawee Needy
I wonder if Warrawee Needy might have come up sick. A few weeks back, we had one (at a much lower level) that went in as a favorite showing no negative signs and ended up last. He just didn't run his normal race. In the week following, he dropped weight before our eyes, hardly ate and his blood was out of whack but no fever to speak of, nothing from the swabs, nothing to pinpoint. After two weeks and some treatments, he started to come around. Could this be something that is going around? Sure hope the horse is back racing true to form before long.
I was down at Grand River
I was down at Grand River yesterday for Industry Day and I must admit, they did put on quite a show.
The real puzzler was of course, was the drive of the 1/9 favorite, Warrawee Needy. I have no questions about Carl Jamieson as a trainer, but looking at the trip Needy got here, it makes me wonder what on earth happened...
I'm sure with Jody down in the States, there would have been a long list of drivers that Carl could have got to drive Needy in this major stakes race.
By far Needy was the best horse in the field, but I saw when Needy was gapped off the gate at the start, trouble was looming. With the bias of the track tipping to the speed and ability to be on the lead or near the lead, when the field hit the 1/4 pole and Carl had him at the back of the pack, it pretty much sealed his fate. Needy did come on a furious rush at the end to finish 3rd, but when it's all said and done, would another driver use a different approach?
Maybe Carl had one of those days to forget, not only this drive with the heavy favorite but his other horse in the field, Czar Seelster, broke with Mark MacDonald driving.
I did learn one lesson on this though, if I see Carl driving again, I definitely will be looking closely at the other horses in that race. I was lucky with this Battle of Waterloo that there was such a heavy favorite and my lesson only took 4 bucks out of my pocket, but I'm sure many more learned that lesson at a heavier cost.
This is what makes horse racing though, no disrespect to Scott Zeron and the connections of The Battle of Waterloo winner, Machapelo. Scott drove a great race and the horse ran a great race. Congrats to them!! The drive Scott gave this horse was perfect to the track bias yesterday and they were rewarded with the win.
Congratulations Scott you
Congratulations Scott you drove your horse like he was the best!
No disrespect to Mr. Jamieson but you should stick to training.
Last night in a race of that magnitude you probably could have had
your pick of a top driver to steer Needy, you didn't and it cost you big time.
It was the toughest test for
It was the toughest test for 2 year old colts, and there were some good horses in this field. Needy was by far the best in there and I thought going in to it that anyone could drive this colt to victory. But the drivers in the race were just that - drivers. They made the colt work for the race, and most of all they made Carl earn his keep as a driver. They saw the edge that the gap at the gate gave them and like most good drivers used this to their advantage. Carl will probably tell you he did not drive a good race, but to try to use a colt like this as many times as Carl needed to, was just asking too much. To look at this any other way would be a lie, but, I think it is fair to say, this is why drivers are drivers and trainers are trainers. No doubt the Jamieson Stable is looking at this as a $120,000 mistake.
Very disappointing effort on
Very disappointing effort on the part of,"Warrawee Needy". Race sort of set up for a late charge, but he couldn't mount a challenge.
They got off the gate well thru an ,"even", opening split, and then,"Machhaprlo", heated up the 2bd quarter with a ,"fast". quarter. That inbalanced the pace towards the first half. All ,"Machapelo ", could muster up was one more ,"even", split theu the 3rd quarter, and then came home in a ,"slow", 30 seconds flat. Should have been challenged late but wasn't. Perhaps there was a ,"speed bias"?
WOW....... I am really
WOW....... I am really interested in Carl Jamieson's thought's on Warrawee Needy and the race. In my opinion, Warrawee Needy is in the top three for two year olds in North America at this point and should have had no problem in winning this race.
Warrawee Needy seemed to be gapped off a bit at the start and got away last.(Besides the breaker)Needy's post postion was good, so I could not understand why Carl did not place Neddy at least in mid pack at the start. Coming from the back of the pack in a race like this(the biggest race for two years olds to date $300,000) and being the heavy favorite I was shocked.
Also when I read that Carl was driving Needy in this race (Jody is at the WDC) I was a little surpised. No disrespect to Carl's driving abiliaties, but there would have been a lot of top drivers that would have jumped at the chance to drive Needy in a $300,000 race.
I do not mean to come off negative towards Carl, but this race was a full second slower than what Needy went in his elim last week and Jody had him wrapped up at the line.
Maybe Needy was under the weather, hopefully Standbredcanada can post an article this week with Carl's thoughts.