by Karen Briggs, WEG Media

Campbellville, ON — The season’s best 3-year-old trotting fillies are converging on Mohawk for this Thursday’s (Sept. 10) Simcoe Stakes and both flights promise exciting match-ups.

The first division, worth C$128,584, will once again pit O’Brien Award winner Elusive Desire against her rival, Raising Rachel. Elusive Desire, by Angus Hall, has had a dream season, capturing the Canadian Breeders Championships, the SBOA Stakes, and an Ontario Sires Stakes Gold final as well as coming third, by mere inches, in the prestigious Hambletonian Oaks. Her 2009 earnings for trainer Mike Keeling, and owners P C Wellwood Enterprises, Bob Fasken and Charlie Armstrong, are $398,785. And her luck seems to be holding as she goes postward in the two hole on Thursday night.

New Image Media photo

Raising Rachel has won 10 times in her career, with earnings of $574,753.

Raising Rachel, meanwhile, will have her work cut out for her from the ten hole in the same division, but the sophomore daughter of Yankee Glide was a fast-closing second to Celebrity Deville in the June 27 Elegantimage final from the seven hole, so outside post positions aren’t completely foreign to her.

Trained by John Kopas for Mel Hartman, KR Stable, Doug Millard, and the estate of George Hempt, Raising Rachel has never been worse than third in seven starts this year, and is coming off five weeks rest following the Hambletonian Oaks, where she was second by exactly one inch in a win photo.

“That break was planned when we mapped out her schedule at the beginning of the year,” says Kopas. “She’ll be pretty busy from now up to the Breeders Crown, so we decided to give her some time off after the Oaks.

“She’s got the Simcoe on Thursday, then we’ll head down to Delaware for the (Buckette), and from there we go to Lexington, and then back for the Breeders Crown.

“We kept her jogging every day. Ideally we would have liked to have had a race going into this one, but there really wasn’t one that suited her.

“That’s why we qualified her on Friday (Sept. 4, where Raising Rachel won by over six lengths in 1:51.4). She should be good and fresh going into this one, anyway. She’ll have to be, from the 10 hole.”

In the second Simcoe split, Bob McIntosh trainee Windsong Soprano is a serious threat, despite having to leave from post 11 in the second tier.

This daughter of Windsong’s Legacy has racked up six victories this season in nine tries, including wins in the Delvin Miller Memorial, Casual Breeze, and most recently, the August 29 Hudson Filly Trot at Yonkers Raceway. Rated the 8-5 favorite, she’ll be up against Anette Lorentzon pupil Jersey AS, who was second in a Hambletonian Oaks elimination and fifth in the final, and I’ll Wait For You, who hails from the shedrow of Dan Creighton and has been a force to be reckoned with in OSS Gold stakes company this year. I’ll Wait For You has drawn the inside post position, while Jersey AS leaves from post six.

The Simcoe Stakes, for 3-year-old trotting fillies, goes postward as races five and eight on Mohawk’s Thursday night card. Post times are 8:46 p.m. and 9:43 p.m. (EDT).