Souper Escape avoided buzzsaw in the Seaway

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Mike Trombetta probably made a wise decision bypassing Saturday’s Grade 3 Seaway with last year’s Canadian champion older female Souper Escape, in which Boardroom put up a big 98 Beyer Speed Figure in a dominant 4 1/2-length score.

Souper Escape won the Grade 3 Trillium for the second straight year in her season debut June 26. Instead of trying to win the Seaway for the second year in a row with her, Trombetta felt it would be more prudent to wait for the $100,000 Belle Mahone Stakes going 1 1/16 miles here Sept. 12.

“We wanted to wait just a little bit longer and get her ready for the” Belle Mahone, Trombetta explained. “If everything was lined up and as good as it needed to be, I might have taken a crack at the seven-eighths, but I think the two-turn race is more important. I’d just as soon wait another couple of weeks for that one.”

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Souper Escape worked three-quarters in 1:13.20 on the Tapeta here Sunday. Owned by Live Oak Plantation, she is the second Canadian champion trained by Trombetta, who conditioned 2019 champion male 3-year-old Global Access for Live Oak. Global Access won a trio of Grade 3 stakes that year – the Marine, Saranac, and Ontario Derby.

Regarding Boardroom, it will be interesting to see if she will be pointed toward the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint at Del Mar. Boardroom has never competed on dirt, but the seven-furlong distance of that race is right up her alley.

Owned by LNJ Foxwoods, Boardroom is trained by Josie Carroll, who saddled Ami’s Mesa in a heartbreaking nose loss to Bar of Gold in the 2017 BC Filly and Mare Sprint at Del Mar. She had won the Seaway by 6 1/4 lengths earlier that year before capturing the Grade 2 Presque Isle Downs Masters, a race that won’t be run this year.

The next local sprint stakes for fillies and mares is the Grade 3 Ontario Fashion going six furlongs on Oct. 3.

Silent Runner tops turf sprint

There is no allowance on Thursday’s eight-race card. Silent Runner should be favored in the sixth, a hybrid maiden turf sprint for 2-year-olds that combines Ontario-sired runners with $40,000 claimers.

Silent Runner was a front-running second debuting in a 4 1/2-furlong dash July 11. Switching to the grass in a six-furlong maiden special on Aug. 1, he finished fourth behind First Empire, who came back to take the open Soaring Free Stakes.

David Moran, who had a lucrative Sunday that included a narrow loss on Riptide Rock in the Queen’s Plate, will ride Silent Runner for trainer Mike Doyle.

Tragically Funny is adding blinkers off a belated third on the Tapeta. The son of Milwaukee Brew is out of a turf winner.