Barracks Road ($20.50) established an easy lead and kept on going to take the $193,900 Ontario Colleen Stakes over 26-1 shot Jenny’s So Great at Woodbine Saturday.
The temporary rail on the turf course was placed in the outermost lane for the one-mile event, a position which aided the speed style of Barracks Road, who set quick fractions of 23.45 and 46.23 seconds under Corey Fraser.
Barracks Road opened up a 2 1/2- length lead at the eighth pole, and then coasted home on top by a length and three-quarters, in a time of 1:34.95. Dixie Chicken and favored No Explaining dead-heated for third in the 11-horse field of 3-year-old fillies.
It was the second victory on the card for the combination of Fraser and trainer Mark Casse.
“She’s an excellent filly,” said Fraser. “If you give her the lead, she’ll run on. She was looking around as she got closer to the wire, but she did what had to be done.”
For notching her second stakes, Barracks Road collected $120,000 for Melnyk Racing Stable.
TOBA STUDY: SYNTHETIC STANDS FOR SAFETY
By Ray Paulick
An examination of 444,848 North American starts by Thoroughbreds in 2009 demonstrated that races on engineered all-weather surfaces led to a lower percentage of career-ending incidents than races on conventional dirt or turf courses. Among other things, the study also confirmed that races on sloppy or muddy racetracks led to a higher percentage of career-ending incidents than races over a fast or firm track, and that horses that began racing as 2-year-olds are less likely to have career-ending incidents than those who began at a later age.
The study, provided to the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association by Equibase Company LLC, looked at the number of horses that, according to the official chart, did not finish a race during 2009, and have not returned to work out or race again through June 1, 2010.
In looking at more than 2.3 million starts in seven different years, the average percentage of CEDNFs was 0.34%, or 34 starters per thousand. The 2009 percentage, 0.35%, should decline slightly, since some horses that have not worked out or raced from Jan. 1-June 1, 2010, may yet return.
What does that average mean to a hypothetical race meet? Let’s say a track conducts a 50-day meeting, with an average of nine races per day, and an ambitious average of 10 starters per race—a total of 4,500 starts. If this is an average meeting, there will be 16 horses that did not finish a race and never again return to training or start in another race, or roughly one every three days.
Woodbine - Best of the Decade
With the advent of a new year, Woodbine Racetrack took this time to look back at the best achievements of it's local jockeys and trainers over the past decade.
Top Trainers by wins 2000 through 2009
Mark Casse – 600 Sid Attard – 568
Bob Tiller – 558
Reade Baker – 442
Scott Fairlie – 439
Abraham Katryan – 397
Roger Attfield – 382
Mark Frostad – 270
Audre Cappuccitti – 268
Vito Armata – 266
Malcolm Pierce – 265
Dave Bell – 255
Josie Carroll – 239
Mike DePaulo – 217
Laurie Silvera – 198
John Ross – 198
Tino Attard – 198
Mike Doyle – 197
Dan Vella – 197
Nicholas Gonzalez – 191
Barracks Road upsets Ontario Colleen
$193,900 Ontario Colleen Stakes over 26-1 shot Jenny’s So Great at Woodbine Saturday.