Woodbine Wrap: Carroll, Morden, Joe and Rocket

Last week’s Top Woodbine Winning Beyer Figures

-courtesy Daily Racing Form

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SOUPER WATSON 89

ARTIE’S PRINCESS 88

LUCKY SCORE 86

HARD EDGE 85

MEYER 82

READY LADY 81

Hot and humid and little rain made for fast turf and slow Tapeta last week at Woodbine. The Tapeta main track did speed up Sunday and was kinder to speed horses than it was Wednesday through Saturday. Outside closers dominated early in the week.

Names on the results sheets included trainer JOSIE CARROLL, who won three races on Saturday and one earlier in the week. A fifth horse, MacLean’s Posse, was second on Sunday.

Trainer RICHARD MORDEN won his fifth race of the season with SILVER SMOKE, owned by Shirley and Carl Dowson. The five wins from the Morden barn matches its previous high in the last 10 years. Silver Smoke is a Silver Max 4-year-old who won his maiden in his grass debut. The gelding was ridden by KAZUSHI KIMURA who won 7 races last week.

ROGER ATTFIELD sent out READY LADY to win on the grass on Saturday and he is now one win away from 2,000 career winners.

NICK NOSOWENKO won his first two races of the year and took both on Thursday evening. Class-dropping BETTABE SWIFT won her maiden and RACING IN THE RAIN took his maiden in his 21st career start.

Sharp race watchers would have noticed a bunch of different silks on horses on the weekend. Queen’s Plate contender HALL OF DREAMS won his maiden on Saturday at 1 1/8 miles (76 Beyer Figure) in blue and white colours of PETER DEUTSCH, one of the co-owners of the tall, leggy son of Lemon Drop Kid. Deutsch is involved in many partnerships in the U.S. and owned Hall of Dreams with Gary Barber, Wachtel Stables and Pantofel Stabvles (Leonard Schleiffer).

Seeing different silks on the horses owned by partnerships is not new but it does make it tricky to keep up with a horse when handicapping races or even calling the races.

ROBERT MARZILLI of ZILLI RACING STABLES has also changed his silks. Marzilli began racing horses in 2014 and in 2016 had Horse of the Year Caren who competed in the white with blue and red star silks. These silks as of this past weekend are now white with red arrows.

And then there is the 9-year-old Iowa-bred gelding ROCKET JOE COPPER, who strolled to his 12th career win on Saturday on the grass for owner Teresa Brine and trainer Joe Russo. Brine and Russo had claimed the leggy gelding on June 3 for $20,000 and won a $20,000 purse this past weekend while also losing him through the claim box for $25,000. Trainer Martin Drexler, who had claimed the horse and Florida and brought him to Ontario, claimed him back on Saturday.

Russo, who had similar luck with a claim in the fall of 2021, Bachelor Pad, is a trainer to keep an eye on.

Rocket Joe Copper is by the well-bred ROCK THE ROCK (Ire), a son of Rock of Gibralter who only won one race and was standing in North Dakota. He has sired only a handful of runners. Rocket Joe Copper’s breeder, Jerry Greve, raced ‘Joe’ for the first 29 races of his career, beginning at Prairie Meadows in 2015.

Up until this weekend, the gelding then was traded about from Ron Spatz, back to owner Greve and trainer Mike Bollinger, trainer Kathleen O’Connell and others.

When Drexler claimed him for $10,000 this winter, the horse had run at 8 different tracks.

And owner/trainer STEVEN OWENS sent out his first winner last week when the 2-year-old first-time starter POULIN IN OT won a 4 1/2 furlong dash in 51.74. The Reload gelding from Town Dance was bred by Owens and wife Bev Lewis and Slade Jones rode. The gelding is actually named for a female hockey player, Marie Philip Poulin, who scored twice to net the gold medal in women’s hockey at the Olympics in Bejing and scored in OT in a recent rematch with the US.