Marquis Downs: Striking Time tops Shortgrass Heritage

Heritage Stakes Day, featuring four $12,500 races for Saskatchewan-breds, will be on offer Saturday at Marquis Downs.

The Shortgrass Heritage, for 3-year-old colts and geldings, and the Parkland Heritage, for 3-year-old fillies, both are carded for one mile.

The Western Heritage, for 2-year-old colts and geldings, and the Woodland Heritage, for 2-year-old fillies, are six-furlong races.

Striking Time, a 12 1/2-length winner of last year’s Western Heritage, is coming off a sixth-place finish in an open allowance race at one mile and looms as the horse to beat in the Shortgrass.

Trained by Fern Zdunick, Striking Time also won the 6 1/2-furlong Prairie Lily in a perfect four-start juvenile campaign under rider Neville Stephenson.

Inposition and Gabuu are the only other winners in the field of seven, and both will be trying a mile for the first time.

Naim Samaroo rides Inposition to Sea, who scored by six lengths in his last start at six furlongs after finishing second behind a graduating Gabuu two weeks earlier.

Gabuu, who will have Christoper Jadoo in the irons, won by 3 1/2 lengths that day and then closed for third in a subsequent allowance try against nonwinners of two.

Silver Mint Deputy, last year’s Woodland winner, began her 2011 campaign at Northlands Park and showed speed before ending fifth in a second-level allowance sprint in her return to Saskatchewan.

Zdunick and Jaboo will team up with Silver Mint Deputy, who has yet to travel this far.

Tingle, the Woodland runner-up, also is new to the distance but comes in off a closing second-place finish in a first-level allowance sprint.

Deputys Moment, the other winner in the field of six, graduated at four furlongs in his debut this May.

The Woodland is a rematch between Freedom Fifty Five, Peakaboo Streak, and Trine Shaheen, who finished 1-2-3 in the six-furlong Gold Strike for Saskatchewan-bred fillies Aug. 5.

Freedom Fifty Five, who scored by 3 1/2 lengths that day, is the only winner in the field of seven.

Canadian Union, Golden Shaheen, and I’m No Quidder, the top three finishers in the six-furlong Harlequin for Saskatchewan-bred 2-year-olds on Aug. 6, are to renew acquaintances in the Western Heritage.

There are four winners in the field of nine, and Canadian Union is perfect in two starts for trainer Walter Banach.