2014 Canadian Triple Crown Trio

On the heels of Lexie Lou’s victory in the Queen’s Plate on July 6 at Woodbine Racetrack (see complete coverage in the August/September issue), two other talented thoroughbreds stepped up to win the last two legs of the Canadian Triple Crown.

Meanwhile, the Plate winner’s connections opted to skip the remaining legs of the Crown. Instead, Lexie Lou handily won the $250,000 Wonder Where stakes on Aug. 10 at Woodbine to push her 2014 earnings to the brink of $1 million.

Prime Time Prince of Wales

Moments before the Prince of Wales Stakes was run for the 76th time at Fort Erie racetrack, owner Jayson Horner shared some thoughts with jockey Eurico da Silva, who was riding his colt Coltimus Prime. “I just told him that we believe in our horse,” said Horner. “And I said to him to ride him like he was the winner.”

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Could a horse race be that easy? Apparently in the case of Coltimus Prime, yes.

Breaking sharply from the gate in the second jewel of Canada’s Triple Crown, Coltimus Prime simply led all the way through the 1 3/16 miles in the quick time of 1:54.58. The dark chocolate-coloured colt was 5-1 and defeated John Fort’s Lynx while favoured Ami’s Holiday rallied too late to be third.

For Horner, who bred Coltimus Prime and co-owns the three-year-old with friend Mike Weingarten, it was a big win after only about half a dozen years in the business. “It was one of those pinch me moments,” said Horner, founder, president and CEO of CanDeal, a Canadian online exchange for Canadian dollar debt securities. “It was definitely an exciting time for us.”

Horner and Weingarten, who started as a standardbred owner, and their families celebrated with their colt’s trainer Justin Nixon, who grew up watching the races at Fort Erie. Born in Windsor, Nixon, 45, raced horses at Fort Erie from 1996 to 2002. He called his Prince of Wales win “a dream come true.”

It was a satisfying victory for the Coltimus Prime team who race under the Cabernet Stable name. They had watched the colt show promise as a two-year-old and then blossom during the winter months while training at Ed Seltzer’s Solera Farm in Williston, FL.

The son of Ontario-sired Milwaukee Brew (a two-time winner of the prestigious Santa Anita Handicap (Grade 1)), Coltimus Prime began his sophomore year in the Tampa Bay Derby but did not take to that track’s dirt surface and finished ninth. He was a better fifth in the Grade 1 Toyota Blue Grass on Polytrack at Keeneland in April before he headed back home where he was second, and then won, an allowance race.

Coltimus Prime earned a start in the Queen’s Plate but was only able to finish ninth. “The Plate went much quicker, earlier, than we had hoped,” said Horner, whose two children have set up Twitter and websites for the colt and the stable.

Nixon did not waver, however, and sent the colt to Fort Erie to have a workout over the dirt surface before the July 29 event. “We tried to do everything we could to put this horse in the best possible position to win,” Nixon said after the victory. “He trained dynamite, he’s eaten well, he’s just done everything the way you’d want a horse to going into a race.”

Horner and Weingarten are practically neighbours in King City, ON and met in 2008. Horner had plenty of background in racing as he accompanied his father Russell to the track in the 1960s and 70s to watch the family’s horses race. It was not until 2007, however, that he claimed his own horse, in partnership with a group of “hockey dads” he met through Carolyn Gianopolous, the sister to Hill ‘N’ Dale Dale Farms’ Glenn and John Sikura.

It was in Florida in February of 2008 where Horner and his group claimed a well-bred three-year-old filly by Distorted Humor from the female family of the great blue-hen mare Ballade for $16,000 from a race at Gulfstream. The filly was unplaced and was sent right to the breeding shed. “I was fairly new to the business and I wanted to be a well-rounded player so I thought I should get in the breeding end,” said Horner.

Horner bought out his partners in 2010 and now is the sole owner of Certainly Special, who has a yearling colt by Sky Conqueror named Narrow Escape and a weanling full brother to Crysta’s Court (Silent Name (Jpn)).

Weingarten hung out at the standardbred races at Western Fair Raceway in London, ON when he was young and through his father and friends, became an owner in 1979. He met Horner in 2008 through their kids and mutual friends and shared ownership of the multiple winner Love that Kitten before he bought into Coltimus Prime in the spring of the colt’s two-year-old season. Weingarten also owns shares of speedy winner Shanagarry and allowance winner Breaking Ball, both of whom race under another Horner partnership called JMC’s Stable.

The Prince of Wales victory by Coltimus Prime was something Weingarten could hardly believe. “I don’t even know the words to explain the Prince of Wales win,” said Weingarten. “Earth shattering? Ecstatic?”

The slogan on the Cabernet Racing Stables website says it all for Horner and Weingarten: blending together “serious racing with serious fun…a collection of fine wines and fast horses.”

Breeders’ Stakes : Ami gets his classic

It was only a matter of time before the gritty three-year-old colt Ami’s Holiday was going to get his crowning moment. The stretch-running bay with a straight white blaze down his face had battled hard in the Canadian Triple Crown: he rallied furiously from far back in the Queen’s Plate when he was second to the tough filly Lexie Lou and he got going too late after a bad start to catch up to Coltimus Prime in the Prince of Wales at Fort Erie on the dirt.

Trying grass and 1 1/2 miles for the first time, Ivan Dalos’ homebred put it all together and stormed clear to win the $500,000 Breeders’ Stakes at Woodbine on Aug. 17 at Woodbine by three-quarters of a length over the maiden Interpol. The victory in the third leg of the Canadian Triple Crown was worth $300,000.

“I think it speaks a lot for this horse,” said trainer Josie Carroll. “We talk a lot about horses not having the constitution that they used to, but this is the culmination of a breeding program by Mr. Dalos interjecting stamina into a racehorse. He was a little tired after the Prince of Wales, shipping down (to Fort Erie), shipping home. He just lit it up (in his turf work). He just came to life.”

Dalos is one of few owners and breeders in Canada who has weathered many storms in the industry since he claimed his first horse almost 40 years ago.

While his first claimed runner was beaten some 45 lengths in the first start, Dalos has put together some of the finest bloodlines in Canadian racing. Ami’s Holiday is a product of four generations of Dalos breeding.

In 1998, Dalos, a 72-year-old native of Budapest, Hungary, hit the big time with his homebreds when Victory Gallop, a horse he sold at auction was up to beat Real Quiet by a nose in the Belmont Stakes, quashing that colt’s Triple Crown bid. Victory Gallop, by Cryptoclearance out of Dalos’ stakes winning mare Victorious Lil, would go on to finish second in the Travers at Saratoga, by a nose to Coronado’s Quest, and fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, at Churchill Downs, defeated less than a length by Awesome Again.

In 2000, Fly for Avie, an auction purchase, won the Grade 1 E.P. Taylor Stakes at 1 1/4 miles on the grass for Dalos.

Victory Gallop shows up in the breeding of most of his current runners and he has a broodmare band of 22 that reside at his farm in Paris, KY or at Norse Ridge Farm in King City, ON.

Ami’s Holiday is out of the winning Victory Gallop mare Victorious Ami and by top American sire Harlan’s Holiday.

Dalos breeds his horses under the name of Tall Oaks Farm. His purple and green silks have been a fixture in Canadian racing for decades and surely will be for years to come.