Gierkink's preview: Pender Harbour, Ultimate Destiny renew rivalry

Steady Growth Stakes

Favorites Pender Harbour and Ultimate Destiny will renew their rivalry in the $125,000 Steady Growth at 1 1/16 miles, the distance over which the latter notched two stakes last year, while beating the former.

Pender Harbour, Canada’s champion 3-year-old in 2011, ended a winless drought while landing his season opener in a seven-furlong allowance. He subsequently ran second in a seven-furlong optional claimer behind a sharp Run to the Bank, who came back to finish a respectable fifth in the Grade 2 Connaught Cup Stakes on the grass.

Pender Harbour defeated Ultimate Destiny when they wound up third and fourth, respectively, in the Grade 2 Autumn Stakes in November. Ultimate Destiny has just one seven-furlong prep leading up to this engagement, which could give the edge to Pender Harbour.

Urban Forester could be the main threat to the protagonists, even though he’s coming off a dull fourth in the allowance prep for the Eclipse Stakes, a bounce-like performance, for sure. He dropped a head decision to Ultimate Destiny in the Dec. 4 Sir Barton Stakes, while earning a career best 97 Beyer Speed Figure.

Tough card to handicap

There are numerous horses attempting a new task in a variety of races throughout the 10-race program.

Ontario-sired maiden special 2-year-olds go 4 1/2 furlongs in the second, and only one entrant in the body of the race has seen action, Colourful Affair. Harveys in Court, Ella’s Smile, and Seffeara have been working fast, and Harveys in Court is a full-brother to the precocious Ring With Bling.

Sorry About That, the probable favorite in the third, is experimenting on the grass in the first-level allowance sprint off a second to last year’s champion sprinter, Phil’s Dream. Sorry About That, a son of the decent turf sire Mobil, is a half-brother to turf winner Don’t Think Twice.

There are a host of Queen’s Plate nominees stretching out to nine furlongs in the fourth, an Ontario-sired allowance for 3-year-old non-winners of two. Among them are One Destiny, Alpha High, Athenian Guard, Brew On the Beach, and Coltimus Prime, who finished a distant fifth at the distance in his penultimate start in the Grade 1 Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland.

Five horses who have never competed on turf were entered in the 10th. Among them, also eligible On Location possesses the best pedigree for the surface. The daughter of Street Cry is out of Grade 1 turf stakes winner Film Maker, the dam of Film Shot, who was a Grade 3-placed runner on the sod.