Milton, ON — Baroness Hill cemented her status as a filly to watch in the Ontario Sires Stakes this season with an impressive gate-to-wire victory in the first of two C$101,300 OSS Gold divisions for 3-year-old trotting fillies Tuesday night (June 13) at Woodbine Mohawk Park.
Doug McNair took the Chantal Mitchell trainee straight to the front from post three, and led the field through fractions of :28.3, :58.1, and 1:27. Entering the stretch Paul MacDonell moved odds on favorite Muscling Vegas out from the pocket to challenge Baroness Hill, but she proved too strong, crossing the wire in a new lifetime mark of 1:54.2 for her biggest win to date. Muscling Vegas was the runner-up and rounding out the top three was Winooksi with Tyler Jones driving.
“Chantal made a couple of changes, and she was perfect tonight,” said McNair. “Once we got away from the gate, she was all trot tonight.”
The talented filly made quite the impression in her two starts as freshman, but had struggled throughout the spring making two breaks in a qualifier, and failing to hit the board in her first three starts.
“She’d kind of been knuckling over behind and just throwing money out the window,” said McNair. “She is real fast, and high speed, and has tons of manners. Like I said I don’t understand why she had been running. She showed tonight she can go fine.”
Owner Tom Hill, who purchased the Kadabra filly for $260,000 as a yearling at the 2021 Standardbred Horse Sale, was happy to see his star pupil take this step forward.
“You just need to look at the paperwork. She is bred to be a champion, and she looks like a champion,” said Hill. “She’s starting to get what she’s got to do now, and when she finds out what she’s got to do she’s as good of a filly as what’s in Ontario.”
The win tripled Baroness Hill’s career earnings to C$78,170, and she paid $9.50 for the win.
The second division was won by 3-5 favorite HP Extra Ice (James MacDonald) who showed serious speed in the back half of her 1:53.2 win.
A trio battled for the lead early with Sweet Detrmination and McNair emerging from the pack to lead the field through soft fractions of :28.1 and :58.2. Then MacDonald pressed go from fourth on his Alarm Detector filly who charged to the front in a :27.4 third panel, and was in cruise control down the stretch, with the plugs still in as she crossed the line 4-1/2 lengths clear of Enola and Tyler Borth. The final podium finisher of the evening was Sweet Detrmination.
“She is learning to be a racehorse,” said winning trainer Ben Baillargeon. “Before we couldn’t pull down the backside because she thought the race was over, and now she knows the race is one mile, and she is all business.”
HP Extra Ice is the second OSS Gold winner from Alarm Detector’s freshman crop of just eight foals, and she now has over C$135,000 in earnings, despite not racing as a 2-year-old. Baillargeon co-owns the filly with Claude Hamel, and Santo and Nunzio Vena.