Dun Drum beats the favourites in Kingarvie Stakes at Woodbine

Darting through along the rail, 5-1 shot Dun Drum and jockey Emma-Jayne Wilson defeated the favourites in the $100,000 Kingarvie Stakes for Ontario-sired two-year-olds on Saturday at Woodbine Racetrack.

Wilson worked out a ground-saving trip aboard the Ian Black-trained Dun Drum in the 1-1/16 mile feature as Victorian Queen Stakes champion Silent Mistake led the field through opening fractions of :24.76, :50.39 and 1:15.04 with Victor’s Dynasty pressing the pace early.

My Silencer, the 6-5 favourite and winner of the Frost King in his debut, rallied three-wide heading towards the final turn and battled with the front-runner into the stretch. However, it was Dun Drum who snuck through inside to prevail in a final time of 1:46.19 just over two lengths in front of Silent Mistake, with My Silencer finishing right there in third.

Scroll to continue with content

“He’s shown us all kinds of class,” said Wilson when asked about the inside trip. “We’ve worked him in behind horses a few times the last two mornings and just by fluke actually we’ve been scooching him up the inside and he’s never hesitated. He always waits for me to tell him to go and when I ask him, he goes, so I was quite confident if the seam opened up on the inside that as soon as I said go he was going to give me what I needed and you saw it. He’s professional and he’s a very classy animal.”

Bred by Joan H. Addison and John Carey, the Bold n’ Flashy-Lea’s Moon gelding has finished no worse than third in his first four starts. Following a runner-up finish when making his stakes debut in the King Frost on October 31, Dun Drum stretched out to 1-1/16 miles for the first time and recorded his second career win for owners Addison, Janet Black and Barbara Brown.

“We’ve loved him from day one. Any other two-year-old we worked him with, he worked as well as or better than,” said Black. “He was fairly precocious, so I was always a little concerned about the two turns, but the only thing was when he started running, he did relax in his races. It wasn’t like he wanted the lead or anything like that, which makes it easier.”

Dun Drum paid $12.50, $5.50 and $2.80. He combined with Silent Mistake ($5.50, $2.50) for a $72.10 exacta while a winning $1 trifecta ticket with My Silencer ($2.20) was worth $86.95. With Pay for Peace finishing fourth, a $1 superfecta returned $339.70.

Blessed Two and Victor’s Dynasty completed the order of finish.