This Sunday’s CLARENDON STAKES at Woodbine, a $150,000 6-furlong sprint for Ontario-bred two-year-olds, is a long way off from the King’s Plate, but the first winner of the (soon to be 98-year-old) Clarendon Stakes won the King’s Plate. So did the most recent winner of the Clarendon.
TROUTLET, a mare, won the inaugural Clarendon Plate in 1926 at Thorncliffe Park and it was a one mile race. Her trainer, John Nixon, is in the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame. In the years since Troutlet’s victory, great Canadian equines such as VICTORIA PARK and L’ENJOLEUR won the Clarendon and then the Plate. But the great SUNNY’S HALO, who won the 1983 Kentucky Derby, was beaten by the filly SEVEN STONES in the 1982 Clarendon.
Last year’s Clarendon winner, MANSETTI, was re-calibrated from a speedy juvenile into the 2025 King’s Plate winner by trainer Kevin Attard for owners Al and Bill Ulwelling.
Great Canadian history may come into play in this year’s Clarendon as PRINCECREST, owned by Gary Barber and trained by Mark Casse, looks to be a major win contender of the field of nine.
Stakes-placed Princecrest is a grey two-year-old gelding by Cairo Prince, sire of 2023 Champion two-year-old MY BOY PRINCE, and from the Macho Uno mare Rosecrest. Like his dam, Princecrest was bred by LANGCREST FARM, owned by Irving Langill and founded by Sydney J. Langill in the early 1960s.
You will know a Langcrest horse as it will always have ‘crest’ as the second part of its name.
Of course Langcrest, the horse, was a good one. Bred in Quebec by Sydney Langill, Langcrest won 15 races and became one of the first few Canadian horses to pass $100,000 in earnings during his career. He won the Manitoba Derby in track record time as a three-year-old. Perhaps one of his most well-known performances was his second-place finish to Northern Dancer in the 1964 Plate.
So Princecrest is a son of the unraced mare Rosecrest, who was bred by Irving Langill, and from a mare Langill obtained from Donver Stable, Cry of the Wild. Princecrest was bought for $50,000 from last year’s Keeneland September yearling sale.
In his debut, Princecrest was third in a maiden dash to fellow Clarendon entrants Big Time Boss (Street Boss) and Mister Blue (Maclean’s Music), both trained by Josie Carroll.
Princecrest then finished second in the grassy Cup & Saucer Stakes to top filly Dixie Law and then fourth in a route race that featured an extremely slow pace.
The Clarendon field is much easier than what Princecrest has been racing against, although there are some speedy winners in the field including stakes winners BIG BOLD AND FIRST (Signature Red), SILVER IS BEST (Signature Red) and RELOAD RALEIGH (Reload).
The Clarendon is race 9 on Sunday.
* NOTE – MARK CASSE has won seven Clarendon Stakes. He also will start turf winner FLEET OF FOOT in the Clarendon.
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