After eight turf races, Our Flash Drive back on Tapeta for Ontario Matron

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Our Flash Drive races over Woodbine’s synthetic Tapeta surface for the first time in more than a year in Saturday’s Grade 3, $150,000 Ontario Matron for fillies and mares.

Trained by Mark Casse for Live Oak Plantation, Our Flash Drive graduated here in June 2021 before doubling up on the Tapeta in the Grade 3 Selene over future Woodbine Oaks winner Munnyfor Ro. She has been campaigned exclusively on the grass since then and was victorious in the Grade 3 Ontario Colleen before running competitively in stakes at Belmont Park last fall.

Since May, Our Flash Drive has finished second in the Grade 3 Beaugay at Belmont, third here in the Grade 2 Nassau, and first in the restricted De La Rose Stakes at Saratoga. She’s exiting a flat fifth on good ground in the Grade 2 Ballston Spa at Saratoga and has worked three times on the Tapeta leading up to the Matron, which will be run over the same 1 1/16-mile distance as the Selene.

“She’s training well,” Casse said. “She likes Tapeta and should be tough.”

Casse also supplemented Alydiva and Broadway Lady.

Dreaming of Drew is the other obvious protagonist in the 10-horse field. Trained by Barbara Minshall, she was one of Woodbine’s leading 2-year-old fillies in 2020 before missing all of last year due to injury.

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Dreaming of Drew’s comeback has been successful. She captured the 5 1/2-furlong Long Branch Stakes and the 1 1/16-mile Belle Mahone Stakes with Kazushi Kimura aboard in the spring.

“I told [Kimura] to just let her be comfortable,” Minshall said after the Belle Mahone. “I don’t see a lot of speed in here. I said if no one goes, you just do what you want to do. She can wire this group.”

Most recently, Dreaming of Drew cut back off a second in the Grade 3 Trillium to seven-eighths in the Grade 3 Seaway and finished a fourth behind the accomplished trio of Lady Speightspeare, Hazelbrook, and Souper Sensational. Hazelbrook came back to win the Grade 3 Ontario Fashion at a short price.

Restricted stakes winner Silent Causeway began this year in a tailspin before dropping in to beat $25,000 claimers in August. She subsequently finished first and second in back-to-back conditioned allowance/optional claimers and is coming up to the Matron in peak form.

Owner-trainer Laura Krasauskaite said the win against $25,000 claimers was a confidence-builder for the 5-year-old daughter of Silent Name.

“I took a big chance there,” Krasauskaite said. “I needed to race her there because she needed a mind boost, something to get her confidence going. I knew that we would have a huge chance to win, but I just gambled by putting her in that race. I was a nervous wreck. You have no idea. There were so many people staring at her, and I wasn’t sure if someone would enter a claim. But she won and it boosted her mind.”

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