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Sunday, August 31, 2014

Sweet Lou Stumbles, Sebastian K Continues On

In this week's Top 10 Poll, a little more daylight should open up between Sebastian K and Sweet Lou as Lou stumbled in last night's Canadian Pacing Derby, defeated by Modern Legend who tied  the stake and Canadian record of 1:47.2



For the record, Sweet Lou, one of four entries from the Ron Burke Stable was not exactly helped by his stablemates as Sweet Lou got to the three-quarters in 1:20.1 which allowed for the field to come flying late, passing the leader by.  Modern Legend was the beneficiary of a good trip and managed to score the 60-1 upset, defeating the ageless wonder Foiled Again by three lengths.

There is a good chance we will be seeing Sweet Lou in the winner's circle again, but a loss in a high profile stake will cost him votes when this week's poll comes out.  It is just a question of how many.


Meanwhile, on Friday night at Vernon Downs, Sebastian K scored another convincing, albeit  workman-like victory in the Crawford Farms in a pedestrian 1:53 mile (ties the track record for aged trotting horses).  What is amazing about Sebastian is the way he fires out once the gate opens.  I don't recall seeing a horse shoot out like he does, as if a bullet shot out of gun.  At the top of the stretch, Market Share closed in and for a moment you may have thought Sebastian K may suffer a defeat but the Swedish wonder kicked into another gear to separate himself from the field with little if any urging.



Sebastian K is a beast, clearly the best aged trotter I have ever seen.  What is really scary is while he was always a top-tier horse in Europe, he was beatable.  Could you imagine what would happen if more European aged trotters came over to North America to race regularly?  There would be some unhappy owners of North American trotters.  Barring an off-track, I wouldn't be surprised to see Sebastian K running the table the rest of the year.


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