from Standardbred Canada
Mississauga, ON — Trainer Casie Coleman has informed Trot Insider that the connections of Betting Line p,3,1:47.2f ($1,879,061) have been forced to retire the multiple stakes winning 3-year-old.
“We made the final decision today (Friday, Nov. 4),” Coleman said. “We wanted to end on a winning note, but it wasn’t meant to be.”
Although the connections have been forced to forgo Betting Line’s next three scheduled races (the Matron Stakes and the Hap Hansen Progress Pace), Betting Line still retires on a winning streak. The son of Ontario sire Bettor’s Delight was carrying an impressive 14-race win streak into October’s Breeders Crown eliminations, which he was forced to be scratched from due to having suffered two serious spider bites on one of his shoulders.
“We planned on supplementing him to the Matron Stakes (which will take place at Dover Downs next week) and then follow that up with the Progress Pace, which he was paid into,” Coleman said.
“He had been coming back from the spider bite well. He had been jogging well and I was happy with the way he was coming along. He seemed like he was getting better.
“David Miller trained him this morning (Nov. 4) and he just wasn’t himself. He was flat. David said that he wasn’t right up on the iron. He also wasn’t striding out with the one leg, which shows to us that he isn’t over those bites on his shoulder.”
The connections of Betting Line announced in mid-September that the brown colt would retire at the end of the 2016 racing campaign and stand stud at Hanover Shoes Farms in Pennsylvania for the 2017 breeding season.
“He’s going to stay here at White Birch Farm until Monday (Nov. 7) and he will then ship to Hanover Shoe Farms,” said Coleman. “The partners will be meeting in Harrisburg next week, at which point we will decide on a stud fee.”
Betting Line retires with a career slate that reads 27 starts, 20 wins, a trio of second-place finishes and a pair of third-place finishes. He banked $1,879,061 in purses for his connections and retires with a pair of world records under his belt. His 1:47.2 victory in the Battle of the Brandywine set a new world record for 3-year-old male pacers on a five-eighths-mile track, while his 1:49 mile in the second heat of the Little Brown Jug is the world record for 3-year-old pacing colts over a half-mile track.
After having just tasted defeat in an overnight to begin his 3-year-old campaign, Betting Line assembled a staggering season. He won his next 14 races, which included wins in the $780,000 Pepsi North America Cup, the $500,000 Battle of the Brandywine, $300,000 Millstein Memorial, the $276,960 Little Brown Jug, the $157,111 Simcoe Stakes, and a sweep of all of his Ontario Sires Stakes races, including his $190,000 OSS Super Final.