Fraser Downs’ Fall/Winter meet began with a familiar force back in action on the West Coast as the O’Brien Award winning horseman Bill Davis returned to the British Columbia harness racing scene that he long dominated before shipping his stable to his native Ontario for a four-year period.
Backed by a powerful stable, “The Dominator” will be looking to continue his winning ways tonight at Fraser with a promising two-year-old gelding, who is undefeated entering the first leg of the Robert Millbank B.C. Breeders Stakes.
Davis made the decision to move back to B.C. after the cancellation of Ontario’s Slots-At-Racetrack Program.
“I was pretty well starving there in Ontario. I got down to three horses and it wasn’t real feasible for me to be there anymore,” Davis told Trot Insider. “The owners were getting out instead of getting in. I had 24 horses and all of a sudden with everything happening in Ontario I just kept losing horses and losing owners.
“Things just weren’t looking good and I didn’t have a whole lot of good stock to keep racing at Mohawk and Woodbine. We depended on the small tracks with the stock that I had and when they cut purses you couldn’t ship for it because you’ve got stall rent, you’ve got shipping expenses and when you go to a race for $5,000 you’ve got to make sure you win just to keep paying your bills. I just couldn’t do it.”
Davis has since returned to B.C. to train for the prominent J J J Stables and is quickly climbing back up the track’s standings in the first three weeks of the meet while earning multiple stakes wins. Heading into this weekend of racing, he had the highest win percentage amongst Fraser’s trainers at 0.464 with nine wins, three seconds and seven thirds in 28 starts.
With the B.C. Breeders Stakes already underway, Davis swept the first leg of the sophomore filly division with his trainees Hurts So Bad and Shadow Time on Aug. 24. Hurts So Bad then came back to win her second leg event on Aug. 31.
The first leg for freshman colts and geldings gets underway tonight and Davis will be looking to collect another stakes win with the unbeaten Need You So Bad.
“He seems to be a nice colt,” said Davis. “He only has one problem; he gets in on his one knee. Other than that he’s done everything we've asked him.”
Need You So Bad started his career racing in Alberta Downs winning two pari-mutuel races in July, including a division of the Horizon Pace for trainer Lance Ward. Davis took over the training duties when he was shipped to B.C. and says the freshman has handled the change in racing surfaces well.
“We were a little worried at the start whether he was going to handle this turn here because it’s a half-mile turn here and he handled it pretty good so we’re happy with him,” he said.
The son of American Ideal set a track record for two-year-old geldings of 1:56.2 last weekend while making his Fraser debut and Davis believes the overall freshman record of 1:55.3 could be in jeopardy too. That record is held by colt Pan Cushion (2006) and filly Just Fiction (2010).
“I think he probably could," said Davis. "I went in [1]:56.2 with him the other day and I didn’t even push him. I’ve never pushed him and he was under wraps. It could be in danger."
Need You So Bad will leave from post four as the 2-1 morning line favourite in tonight’s $7,500 Robert Millbank B.C. Breeders Stake, scheduled for the third race. First race post time is 7 p.m. (Pacific).
To view Saturday's harness racing entries, click on the following link: Saturday Entries - Fraser Downs.