Grand River: Stonebridge Wizard pulls one out of his hat in Battle of Waterloo

Doug McNair scored his record sixth driving victory in the Winbak Farms Battle of Waterloo final for Ontario-sired rookie pacing males on Monday afternoon at Grand River Raceway, driving Stonebridge Wizard to the gelding's fourth lifetime win in the C$245,400 contest.

The 5-2 second choice left strongly, followed from the pocket by Sterling Choice and Tyler Borth. Fifth And Five, with Jody Jamieson in the bike, came calling past the 26 flat opening quarter, but couldn't make front. Stonebridge Wizard battled on the pylons to the 53 1/5 half, with 3-5 favorite Fifth And Five still parked first-over. The pacers were four-wide approaching three-quarters, as Out Of Ice (Trevor Henry) and Allstar Maniac (James MacDonald) stacked up outside of Fifth And Five, while McNair's horse maintained a half-length advantage to that point, reached in 1:22 1/5.

Despite the battles and fast fractions, Stonebridge Wizard just kept finding more on the lead, and he managed to stay ahead of Sterling Choice through the stretch and to the wire in a close, 1:51 2/5 finish. Tito N Cheddar (Louis-Philippe Roy) closed for show.

"The passing lane here doesn't seem to favor horses in the two-hole. I had the perfect position, (posts) four or five here are great to get off the gate. When I crossed over, I said 'they're going to have go a pretty good half to get around me,'" McNair said about his strategy. "I still was thinking about letting Jody go heading into the second turn, but I knew if I let him go, our race was over. We had no shot of winning. I didn't want to finish last either. I really thought that was the only one that had a shot to beat us. He was handy and he's a real nice colt. He's so professional.

"I actually get nervous on days like this for some odd reason. My buddies from my high school come here and a lot of my family's here, so it's like they expect me to win. I just don't want to mess things up."

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Stonebridge Wizard, a gelded son of Dancin Lou-Odds On Magic, is owned by David Kryway of Amherstburg, Ontario, and was bred by Angie Stiller of London, Ontario. The C$32,000 London Classic yearling has four wins and a place finish in his first five career starts for trainer Jared Bako. His Battle of Waterloo clocking established a new track record 2-year-old male pacers and a Canadian record for a rookie gelding pacer on a five-eighths-mile oval, plus surpassed his own Canadian seasonal record for 2-year-old pacing geldings on a five-eighth-mile track this year.

"He's been a colt that we really liked right from the get-go when we broke them in November," offered Scott Bako, trainer Jared Bako's brother and assistant trainer. "Jared was always really high on him. He was always his favorite actually of the bunch. He's never really done a whole lot to disappoint us. He's just got consistently stronger and stronger. In his case, he's a big, strong, kind of a rangy kind of colt. He is bigger than most of the colts that are in here as a 2-year-old. He's a colt that does kind of set up where when they go more fractions in here, I think it will suit him because he does cover the ground so well. You've got to just hope that you've put your work in and they're fit enough and they're ready go. At the end of the day, it's on them when they hit the racetrack.

"He is eligible for the Metro. He'll most likely be in there I would imagine, and then the Breeders Crown down at the Meadowlands. Other than that, I think he's just going to mostly see the OSS. Jared doesn't like to get too many starts on the babies. There's no point in wearing them out now, there's still next year we've got to worry about."

--edited press release (Grand River)--