from the Ontario Sires Stakes

Campbellville/Grand River, ON — The 2-year-old pacing and trotting colts will make their second Ontario Sires Stakes Grassroots appearance Monday night (July 21) at two different Ontario racetracks. The pacers will headline Grand River’s card while Mohawk features the trotters.

Both groups have one Grassroots test under their harnesses and this is usually when you see movement between the Gold and Grassroots divisions depending upon performance in the first stakes of the season. Many horses who perform well at the Grassroots level will have a bump up to the Gold division.

However, that’s not happening among the rookie colts this season. In the trotting division’s first OSS Grassroots event of the year at Georgian Downs there were five divisions and all five of those winners have been entered at Mohawk. In fact, three of the winners, Call Me Richard, Hemi Seelster and Benvenuti, will face off side by side in the third of six C$18,000 contests at the Campbellville oval.

Call Me Richard, by Muscle Mass, won his Georgian OSS event in 2:01. He’ll have Paul MacDonell up from the rail. Hemi Seelster, from the first crop of Holiday Road, leaves right alongside in post two for Steve Byron. He took his first OSS event in 2:00.4. Right next to him from post three is Benvenuti who will be driven by trainer Eddie Green. The Muscle Mass son was a three length victor at Georgian.

Mandeville, a Majestic Son gelding who won at the Innisfil track in 2:01.1, has post nine in the opening division, race one. The other Georgian winner, Numbers Game in 2:01.1, has post three in the sixth race with Mario Baillargeon up.

The pacers kicked off their Grassroots season at Mohawk earlier this month with six divisions. Five of the six winners have been entered back for the second Grassroots division Monday night at Grand River. The only winner not entered was Make Some Luck who had been entered in the Gold last week at Grand River but scratched.

Two of the winners will square off in the first event, race one. Jeb, a Camluck colt with a 1:57.1 OSS win under his bridle, has post one with Phil Hudon aboard. Bridge Of Stone, a winner in 1:57.3 in the opener is at the opposite end of the starting gate in post nine.

Another pair of winners from the first Grassroots will compete in race nine. Nor Star Renegade, a winner in 1:57.1 to start the OSS year, has drawn the rail and will have Jody Jamieson at the lines. Half A Billion, a very speedy winner in the Grassroots opener in 1:54.3, has post seven and Mike Saftic at the controls.

The other winner from the first Grassroots event, by six lengths in 1:56.2, Single White Sock, has post four in race 10 for Scott Coulter.

Grand River’s card gets underway at 6:30 p.m. with the Grassroots races featured in races one, two, five, six, seven, nine and 10.

Mohawk starts things up less than an hour later at 7:25 p.m. The OSS trotters will be in the spotlight in races one, two, three, six, eight and nine.

The full cards are available through the links below.

http://www.standardbredcanada.ca/racing/entries/data/e0721grvrn.dat
http://www.standardbredcanada.ca/racing/entries/data/e0721mohsn.dat