from the Ontario Sires Stakes

Innisfil, ON — Two-year-old trotting fillies trained by John Bax and driven by Steve Byron captured two of the six $16,740 Ontario Sires Stakes Grassroots divisions on Tuesday night (July 22) at Georgian Downs.

In the sixth and fastest division Byron worked out a perfect two hole trip for his charge Railee Priti behind pacesetter National Trace who trotted through fractions of :29.3, :59.2 and 1:30.

Just before they reached the final turn Byron pulled the right line on his filly and she responded and trotted by the leader to win comfortably in 1:59.2, the fastest mile in Canada to date this year by a rookie trotting filly on a five-eighths-mile track. National Trace held for second while Summers Jewel was third.

It was the first lifetime win in two tries for Railee Priti, a daughter of Muscle Mass-Railee Beautiful owned by breeder Ron Mersky and trained by John Bax.

Bax and Byron’s other trip to the OSS winner’s circle was courtesy of Fiery Eyes who went gate-to-wire in :30, 1:01.1 and 1:30.1 and tripped the timer in 2:00.4 to defeat Tymal Illbthere and Flexy Millie.

Fiery Eyes was also recording her first lifetime win for Bax, who shares ownership of the Mr Lavec miss with breeder Glengate Farms. Bax also trained the filly’s dam, the $231,482 winner Aimees Image.

Local trainer Keith Jones saw his filly Judy The Beauty cruise to a front end score with Bob McClure in the sulky for the 2:00.3 effort. Owned by Randy Zhok, the Muscle Mass-Northern Goddess daughter was notching her first pari-mutuel victory in her second lifetime start.

Tuesday night’s other winners were D Espoir (Windsong Espoir-Davallia) and Jody Jamieson for trainer Dany Fontaine in 2:00.3; Stay In Touch (Kadabra-Dial Nile) and Scott Coulter for trainer Bob McIntosh in 2:01 and Were Just Sayin (Holiday Road-Stewpot Hanover) with Paul MacKenzie driving for trainer Wayne Langille in 2:01.1.

The next Grassroots event for this group is slated for July 31 at Mohawk while their Gold counterparts will square off Wednesday night at Grand River.

To see the complete results from Tuesday night’s races at Georgian Downs, click on this link.