by Rich Fisher, USTA Web Newsroom Senior Correspondent

Rich Fisher

Trenton, NJ — Sometimes it’s pretty amazing what an extra $1,000 can buy.

William “Don” Cantrell has discovered that over the past five months after purchasing Classic Belisima at the Blooded Horse Sale in November.

With trainer John Cabot surveying the horses, Cantrell called a friend who was there and asked him to bid up to $15,000. Cabot saw several pacers he really liked, but the more he looked at Classic Belisima, the more he liked her.

“I called back and said ‘Go $16,000 because a lot of people stop at 15,” Cantrell said. “I was sitting in my living room watching the sale and the board rolled up at $17,000 and I said ‘Well we didn’t get her.’ And about that time the phone rang and he said ‘We got her, the board rolled back to $16,000.’

“So that extra thousand I told him to bid ended up getting us the horse.”

Curtis Salonick photo

Classic Belisima has earned $63,055 in her 10 starts this season.

And what a horse she has been. Classic Belisima enters Wednesday night’s (April 22) $30,000 Bobby Weiss Series final for 3- and 4-year-old female trotters at The Downs at Mohegan Sun Pocono as the 2-1 morning line favorite. She has won eight of her 10 races this year and has won four straight, including all three Weiss Series preliminary rounds in which she competed.

“There was just something about her we liked,” Cantrell said. “We’ve had a lot of luck racing fillies over the years; I’ve raced a lot of fillies. Before (Cabot) even looked at her, he knew the guy that had her and he was a real good horseman, so you knew you didn’t have to worry about anything and we decided to take a shot on her.”

In her first race for her new connections at Dover Downs, Classic Belisima was driven by Corey Callahan, who sat in the back of the pack until the three-quarters mark and got beat by a nose.

“That first night I knew we had a good horse,” Cantrell said.

“She can race any way,” he added. “She’s been on the front end up there, and Corey Callahan says she’s awesome off a helmet. If you want to race her from behind, you can race her anyway you want to and you can drive her with two fingers.”

David Miller will drive her in the Weiss final, where she will face off against Dress For Success, who has also won four straight.

“That’s amazing,” Cantrell said. “We’ve been there three times, they’ve been there four, we never drew in the same heat. But we’re in it together (Wednesday). We feel good about it and I’m sure they feel good about it. We’ll just see what happens.”

The owner feels Dress For Success will not be Classic Belisima’s biggest test of the year, if only because she has been predominantly racing against males at Dover.

“It’s tough when girls race against boys,” Cantrell said. “That’s the bad thing about racing trotting fillies on the East Coast; you never get a race against the girls. All the races we won in Dover were against big, strong boys.

“You never know about a horse race. It looks like a two-horse race (Wednesday) and somebody else may come out of the woodwork. That’s why a horse race is the way it is.”

And Cantrell loves every minute of it. A retired basketball/football coach and athletic director from Johnson Central High School in Eastern Kentucky, Don got started “about 15, 20 years ago buying cheap claimers.”

“It’s just a hobby for me,” he said. “I love a nice horse. I’m a retired teacher, I’m not looking to get rich. I just love to play with a nice horse.”

He has a nice filly trotter named Golden Big Stick, who he owns with Mike Hollenback. Last season as a 2-year-old, Golden Big Stick won $172,120 on the Indiana Sire Stakes circuit. But of the eight horses he owns, Cantrell considers Classic Belisima the best so far.

“I’ve had some nice horses, but I’ve never had one trot 1:53.3 before,” he said. “I really think this is the best horse I’ve ever owned.”

He and Cabot have no solid schedule for Classic Belisima for the upcoming months.

“Nah, we’re just going to sit down and take a look at it,” Cantrell said. “If there are some nice races out there we’ll give it a shot. We don’t have anything planned now, maybe take a couple weeks off after this. We’re just going to race through the summer.”

And he hopes to watch that extra $1,000 investment continue to grow.