Northlands Park: Legend Fortynine gets distance test in Canadian Juvenile

Going into the final weekend of racing at Northlands Park, trainer Dale Saunders holds a six-win lead over Greg Tracy.

Saunders isn’t counting on winning the title, but he likes his chances with Legend Fortynine in the $50,000 Canadian Juvenile on Saturday. Western Heritage, trained by Tracy, also looks like a serious threat to win the one-mile feature that drew nine horses.

“Tracy has a lot of loaded bullets left, so I’m not home and cooled out yet,” Saunders said.

Legend Fortynine is coming off a nine-length romp going 6 1/2 furlongs in the $50,000 Alberta Premier’s Futurity and will be stretching out to a middle distance for the first time in the Juvenile. Two starts back, Legend Fortynine forced a quick pace before fading to finish sixth in the $50,000 Birdcatcher.

“He went too fast while going head-and-head, and he may have bled a bit,” Saunders said.

Legend Fortynine was administered Lasix for the first time when he easily won the Premier’s Futurity.

Saunders, who looks a youthful 71, didn’t expect to be the leading trainer at this stage in his career, and it looks like he’s gearing up for another strong meet next year.

“This probably would have been a good year to retire, but I couldn’t stop myself from buying yearlings at the sale, and I just got back from buying more horses in Vancouver.”

Saunders was in Vancouver when Legend Fortynine worked a bullet five furlongs in 1:01.60 last Saturday.

“It was too fast,” Saunders said. “I wanted him to go in about 1:03. He’s seems to be doing fine, though, and I expect him to run a good race.”

Rico Walcott picks up the mount from Fernando Perez.

Western Heritage overcame a wide trip to edge Dr Sport in a second-level allowance race Sept. 7 and could be dangerous from a stalking position with Amie Pooli retaining the mount. Dr Sport came back to finish second in a quickly run first-level allowance race at Hastings last Sunday.

Go Max hasn’t been worse than third in four career starts for trainer Joan Petrowski and looks like a major factor with blinkers going on for the first time. He just missed in the Birdcatcher and then had a rough trip when he finished third behind Western Heritage in his most recent start.