by Breeders Crown Publicity

TORONTO – The 11 sophomore colt and gelding trotters entered in Saturday night’s C$625,000 Breeders Crown Three-Year-Old Colt Trot got the weekend off last week while four of the other seven divisions were forced into elimination races.

According to the connections of many of those trotters, the week layoff was more of a blessing than a burden for the horses to overcome.

USTA Photo

Coventry, who is 10-1 in the morning line for Saturday’s C$625,000 Breeders Crown 3-year-old colt trot at Woodbine Racetrack, looks out of his stall at Mohawk Racetrack.

“The layoff definitely will help my horse,” Coventry’s trainer, Hall of Famer Doug Ackerman said at Tuesday afternoon’s Breeders Crown Draw and Press Conference at Woodbine.

“It has been a long season,” Ackerman continued. “And with the level of competition this year, when these colts have gone, they have had to go very hard. I am going to train him tomorrow (Wednesday.) But I’ll really have a better handle when I go to warm him up Saturday night.”

One unique situation with the Breeders Crown being held at Woodbine is the fact that the track is only open on racing nights. No Standardbred horses are stabled on the grounds at Woodbine. Horses must ship in to race from either the grounds at Mohawk or from farms of training centers in rural Ontario.

There are not even qualifying races at Woodbine, as all qualifiers are held at Mohawk, 30 miles away.

It makes the job of a trainer more difficult. Not having the opportunity to jog or train over the Woodbine surface can leave doubts in a trainer’s preparation.

“At least the situation is the same for everybody,” Ackerman said. “The mile will still be a mile. If you’ve got the horse, you still have the horse. The fact we can’t train here really won’t make a big difference at this point.”

Another trainer who felt the layoff was a blessing was trainer Ron Gurfein, whose Cantab Hall has been installed the 2-1 morning line favorite for Saturday night’s final.

“The layoff certainly does not hurt at this point of the season,” Gurfein said from Florida Monday afternoon, where it was 89 degrees while it was a blustery 48 degrees and damp in Toronto.

“He trained great the other day and I have to be optimistic,” Gurfein continued. “What concerns me most is I have no idea why he raced poorly in the Kentucky Futurity. It is the first clunker that he ever threw in his entire career. It may have been track bias that day. With the exception of Revenue, who is a remarkable horse, nothing won on the front end that day and 3/5 shots were getting beat.”

Gurfein said that the encouraging thing was that Cantab Hall has raced well over Canadian surfaces, winning his Canadian Trotting Classic elimination and finishing second to Windsong’s Legacy in the final at Mohawk.

“He has been fine there,” Gurfein said. “I’m not thrilled with post 11 but I am sure he will be able to get over the race track.”

There is no denying that the Woodbine surface favors front-end speed, which appears to be right up Cincinnati Kid’s alley. “There is no doubt that this track is front-end friendly,” said Cincinnati Kid’s driver Trevor Ritchie. “I have not had that much experience with this colt, but I was able to race him on the front end and he won in 1:54.4 at Mohawk. If you look at the program, it appears he needs to be on the front.

“But what is most difficult about the track are the turns,” he said. “You are hard pressed to make up any ground on the outside through the turns. What that does is that everybody sort of walks through the turns and gets freshened up for the sprint to the wire.”

Driver Steve Condren hopes that his colt in the Breeders Crown, the Bob McIntosh-trained In Conchnito, will revert to the form that included a 1:54 victory over the Woodbine surface in the Canadian Breeders final on July 31.

“He wasn’t really himself the last time I raced him,” Condren said of the colt’s fourth-place effort in the Canadian Trotting Classic at Mohawk Sept. 25. “All I was trying to do was follow Windsong’s Legacy and he could not keep up.

“He’s a nice enough colt,” Condren continued. “He’s been able to make a million dollars and not one cent of that was earned outside Ontario. He’s capable enough to play with these if things go his way.”

During a television interview at Woodbine last Thursday, trainer Brett Pelling was absolutely enthusiastic about his chances with Rocky Balboa, who turned in his best showing of the year in the Kentucky Futurity.

Trainer Chuck Crissman, whose wife Wendy is a co-owner of Rocky Balboa, was pleased to hear about Pelling’s remarks.

“Brett has done a great job with Rocky Balboa,” Crissman said from his Delaware farm. “If Brett is optimistic than I am absolutely ecstatic.”

The C$625,000 Breeders Crown Three-Year-Old Colt & Gelding Trot will be the fifth race on the card and fourth race of the C$5.6 million Breeders Crown eight-race extravaganza. Post time is 7:15 p.m. Saturday night.