On Monday night at Harrington Raceway, we have seen the crowning of a new star in the FFA pacing ranks in Won The West. Despite being parked out first over the entire last half of the mile, Won The West was able to get past Foiled Again in the final strides for the victory in the $322,000 Bobby Quillen Memorial in 1:52.4 beating Foiled Again and Mister Big.
As you may recall, this is not Won The West's first big win this year. Earlier this season, he won the Winbak Pace at Delaware (defeating Mr Big) , the Breeders Crown Aged Open Pace at The Meadowlands (beating Mr Big, Shadow Play, Art Official and Shark Gesture) as well as capturing an elimination for the Canadian Pacing Derby. While WTW has always been a solid race horse, this five year old has really blossomed this year and will be a serious player in this division for a long time to come.
Congratulations to Mister Big who became harness racing's second $4 million dollar horse with his third place finish in the Quillen. Mister Big's racing career is coming quickly to an end so he may join the stallion ranks in Ontario. Hopefully, he will have a successful stallion career with breeders looking to bred to a stallion who shows the ability to race a long career, grinding out victories. As a tribute to Mister Big, we bring you one of his victories this year, the Allerage Pace at The Red Mile.
4 comments:
WTW was great Monday PG, no way did I expect him to get by Foiled Again off that slow half. WTW is proving to be a threat on all size tracks when it looked like earlier in his career he was a one run horse that liked the big tracks.
Kudos to the second 4 million dollar horse. Still waiting to see if that was his last race. The Allerage was special, he looked beat at the 3/4's.
Do we think WTW is better this year because of the driver change? I think Greg Grismore is a great driver but maybe not up to the standards of the "star" drivers. Or is this a case of the horse maturing and just flat out being better this year?
My guess is it is mostly the horse maturing. I am not sure the driving change was to get a better driver or a driver willing/able to drive the horse wherever he is racing. Some drivers can't or are unwilling to give up a whole night of driving at a raceway to go race elsewhere for one race.
Greg Grismore was a star at Northfield, just ordinary everywhere else. I think the driver changes have made a big difference.
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