by Mark Ratzky, publicity, Cal-Expo

Sacramento, CA — Winsom Kelly didn’t get to the races at Cal Expo until earlier this year at the age of five, but he’s doing his best to make up for lost time with six wins and five runner-up finishes from his 23 appearances. The dark-hued trotter is coming off a handy victory last week after doing the stalk-and-pounce for Luke Plano.

“I didn’t know much about this horse until last year, because he was just a boarder at my ranch,” trainer Larry Alterman explained. “It turned out the people who owned him couldn’t pay anymore, so they just left him, and when I went to check I found out that he hadn’t even been registered.”

Before Alterman could even begin to attempt to get the then 4-year-old to the races, he had to decide if he wanted to make the investment of time and finances it was going to take.

“His sire Egocentric was well bred, but there wasn’t much to go on, and the dam had thrown a half-brother who was decent back East. I also knew that they had tried to get him ready at one point and he was a little crazy and even broke a couple of jog carts.”

Alterman decided to take a gamble, and after doing a little detective work, he tracked down everybody who needed to be paid before he was able to register the trotter.

“It probably cost me about $2,000 to get all the paperwork taken care of, then it was time to find out what kind of investment I’d made.”

As things turned out, Winsom Kelly was a natural.

“Trotters can be real tough, especially when it comes to the equipment, but he was super. It wasn’t until late last year that I could really get started with him, and then we had to deal with the rain. I’d have to say it all turned out pretty well.”

Winsom Kelly has posed for snapshots following three of his last seven outings, two with Scott Cisco and the most recent with Plano. Up to this point, it has been his modus operandi to play the role of stalker and then do his best trotting in the stretch.

“He’s still green and seems to think the race is over when he gets to the front, so we race him from behind,” Alterman noted. “This isn’t to say he won’t be a factor on the lead someday.”

Live racing resumes at Cal Expo on Thursday (Dec. 1) at 5:30 p.m. (PST) and continues on Friday (Dec. 2) and Saturday (Dec. 3) at 6 p.m. The Thursday program will feature an Early Pick-4 with a $4,588 carryover that will lead into a $20,000 guaranteed gross pool (in partnership with the USTA Strategic Wagering Program), while the Late Pick-4 will come with a $10,000 guaranteed gross pool. The Early Pick-4 covers the second through fifth races on the card, while the second sequence encompasses the sixth through ninth events on the evening.