Caren will try to make grade in Ontario Colleen

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Caren completed Canada’s Triple Tiara series with back-to-back wins in the Bison City and Wonder Where stakes and will be looking to win her third straight race in Saturday’s Grade 3, $150,000 Ontario Colleen Stakes over a mile on turf for 3-year-old fillies, trainer Michael De Paulo said.

De Paulo said Caren got a little break after going gate to wire in the Wonder Where, run over 1 1/4 miles on grass Aug. 7. She resumed breezing Aug. 27 in preparation for the Ontario Colleen and worked five furlongs in a bullet 59.40 seconds on Tapeta here Saturday.

“She’s done a couple five-eighths and a half,” De Paulo said. “She’s cutting back off a mile and a quarter, and I just wanted to freshen her up a little bit. We’ve given her six weeks to make sure she’s good and ready.”

De Paulo said the main motivation behind running in the Ontario Colleen is to get Caren her first graded stakes score. Caren ran third in the Grade 2 Natalma Stakes as a 2-year-old in 2015 and was third in the Grade 3 Selene Stakes back in May.

“She’d run hard through the Canadian Triple Tiara,” he said. “She did really well. She was third in the Oaks and won the next two. She’s been graded-stakes-placed twice, and I thought the next thing to do with her would be to try and win a graded stakes.”