Scott has only a few, but one may go in Prince of Wales

William Scott owns only two broodmares and his racing stable rarely grows past a half-dozen, but one of his homebred runners may go in the $500,000 Prince of Wales Stakes, the second jewel of Canada's Triple Crown, at Fort Erie on July 21.

Le Cinquieme Essai, a lightly raced son of Fastness from the Regal Classic mare Words of Royalty, earned a trip to the Prince of Wales when he impressively won a race on the Woodbine turf on July 7, his second win in two starts this year.

"I've never ever had a horse in that type of race," said Scott, referring to the Wales.

Scott has been breeding and racing a small collection of Thoroughbreds for 25 years. Scott and his family are in the petroleum and ranching business in Calgary and have about 450 cattle on their J2 ranch. The Thoroughbreds are boarded at farms in Alberta, Ontario, and Kentucky.

In the early 1980's, Scott claimed the Reasonably Fair mare Time for Words for $12,500 and earned about $60,000 with her. She had several stakes wins. She became a foundation broodmare for the farm, producing nine foals including the popular Woodbine stakes winner Cracker's Folly and stakes-placed Words of Royalty.

Le Cinquieme Essai is the second foal of Words of Royalty, who has a 2-year-old filly by Numerous named Miss Filibuster.

"I bred her to Fastness because I liked the bloodlines," said Scott. "I went down to look at him and he was a leggy, lean horses, I liked the presence of him."

Scott received rave reviews about Le Cinquieme Essai as a young horse from Gail Wood, owner of Woodlands Farm, where Scott keeps his horses in Ontario.

"She was very impressed and said he was quite a smart horse," said Scott.

The colt's name means "the fifth try" in French; he was given the name because Scott's first four names for the colt were rejected by The Jockey Club.

The colt's dam lost a foal by Lear Fan last year because of the Mare Reproductive Loss Syndrome but is in foal this year to the stallion Perigee Moon.

Scott, who has retired Cracker's Folly and hopes to stand him at stud in Canada next year, only visits Ontario "once or twice a year" but will make the trip to Fort Erie next weekend for Le Cinquieme Essai's stakes debut. "If he lights the tote board I'll be happy as heck," he said.

Canada's sires have runners in Wales

The top three stallions in Canada by progeny earnings will be represented by starters in the Prince of Wales.

Tejabo, who stands in British Columbia and leads all sires with progeny earnings of over $947,000 (through July 7), is the sire of Queen's Plate winner T J's Lucky Moon and Bravely.

War Deputy's son Forever Grand will be attempting to better his third-place finish in the Plate in the Prince of Wales. His sire has 22 winners from 63 starters and earnings of almost $910,000.

Questing Knight, who did not compete in the Plate, represents Ascot Knight, who has sired the earners of over $882,000 this year.