Ami's Holiday tries dirt in Prince of Wales Stakes

Queen’s Plate runner-up Ami’s Holiday headlines a field of 10 Canadian-bred 3-year-olds set to contest the $500,000 Prince of Wales Stakes, the second jewel of the Canadian Triple Crown, over 1 3/16 miles on dirt at Fort Erie Race Track on Tuesday.

Ami’s Holiday has been the runner-up in his last two races and most recently finished 1 1/2 lengths behind Lexie Lou in the Queen’s Plate on July 6. Lexie Lou will skip the Prince of Wales in favor of the $250,000 Wonder Where Stakes for Canadian-bred 3-year-old fillies over 1 1/4 miles on turf at Woodbine on Aug. 10.

“I was really happy with [Ami’s Holiday’s] race in the Plate,” said trainer Josie Carroll. “I thought he came with a good finish. He overcame the outside post and finished up really, really well.”

Ami’s Holiday drew post 2 for the Prince of Wales and is the 9-5 morning-line favorite. Luis Contreras retains the mount and may need to navigate a trip with a horse who has found trouble in some of his races.

“I’m sure [the post position] will be all right,” Carroll said. “We have a long way to go. There are still a lot of horses, and there will be a lot of traffic. He’ll just have to needle his way through, I’d imagine.”

While several other Prince of Wales contenders took to the dirt for their final breezes ahead of the race, Ami’s Holiday breezed five furlongs on Woodbine’s Polytrack in 1:01.00 on Wednesday. But Carroll did ship Ami’s Holiday down to Fort Erie to get acclimated last weekend, and he trained on dirt over the winter. The horse has made all seven of his career starts on Woodbine’s Polytrack.

“We wanted to go down and ship him so that when we went down on Tuesday, everything wasn’t new,” Carroll said. “He handled everything really well down there. He worked on the dirt all winter at Oaklawn Park, so we’re comfortable with how he gets across it.”

Three other horses – Matador (seventh), Lions Bay (sixth), and Coltimus Prime (ninth) – exit the Queen’s Plate to run in the Prince of Wales.

Matador is among the more experienced horses on dirt in the Prince of Wales field, having raced in a series of Kentucky Derby preps over the winter. Trainer Mark Casse had even considered skipping the Queen’s Plate to run Matador in the Prince of Wales if he didn’t win an allowance race May 28 on the Woodbine Polytrack.

“The way he trained last winter, we always thought he was much better on the dirt,” he said. “But then he came and ran well when he won the allowance.”

Matador and Casse’s other entrant in the Prince of Wales, East Side, worked on the dirt training track at Woodbine on Monday, but a final time was not recorded due to fog.

“It was so foggy that nobody could see, but [jockey] Patrick [Husbands] was really pleased with him,” Casse said of Matador. “They worked head-and-head in the fog.”

The new shooters to the Canadian Triple Crown for the Prince of Wales are East Side, Ascot Martin, Money Talks, Smart Spree, Lynx, and Rhythm Blues.

KEY CONTENDERS

Ami’s Holiday (Last 3 Beyers: 86-86-81)

* Formulator Fact: Carroll has won with 22 percent of her 69 starters who were moving from synthetic to dirt over the last five years, with a return on investment of $2.22.

* Ami’s Holiday has recorded an 86 Beyer Speed Figure in each of his last two starts, the best last-out Beyer in the field.

Matador (Last 3 Beyers: 66-85-84)

* Casse and John Oxley will be looking for their third consecutive Prince of Wales victory. The trainer and owner combined to win the 2012 running with Dixie Strike and the 2013 edition with Uncaptured.

Lynx (Last 3 Beyers: 78-84-47)

* Formulator Fact: Trainer Cathal Lynch and jockey Frankie Pennington have teamed up to win with 36 percent of their 135 starters over the past five years, with an ROI of $2.12.

* Formulator Fact: Lynx will be Lynch’s first starter in Canada. Over the last five years, Lynch is at 15 percent from 40 starters with shippers in non-graded stakes, an angle that has produced a $2.67 ROI.