Tharrenos stuffs stakes with juvenile contenders
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ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Bill Tharrenos has taken a strength-in-numbers approach to Sunday’s pair of $100,000 Ontario-sired stakes for 2-year-olds over seven furlongs at Woodbine. He entered the trio of Silver Is Best, Big Bold and First, and Bank On Big Winner in the Frost King, and has Zabarta and Cayenne Kiss in the South Ocean.
Silver Is Best graduated second time out by 5 1/4 lengths while earning a solid 76 Beyer Speed Figure in July. He came up empty in the Simcoe Stakes before taking the Bull Page Stakes for Ontario-sired stock with just a 53 Beyer on Sept. 14.
“The [Bull Page] set up really sweet for him,” Tharrenos recalled.
Big Bold and First earned his diploma second time out before posting a 29-1 upset in the $201,000 Simcoe for yearling sales stakes graduates. He was softened up in a speed duel most recently when fourth in the Bull Page. Tharrenos was delighted with his five-furlong breeze in 1:00.40 on Oct. 11.
“I think he’s going in good,” Tharrenos said.
Bank On Big Winner, another second-out maiden breaker, finished ninth in the Simcoe and a distant third in the Bull Page.
“He hopped in the air coming out [of the gate] and missed the break in the last one,” Tharrenos said. “He’s doing good. Going seven-eighths of a mile, you have to have a good, fit horse. Hopefully, we haven’t put them over the top because they’ve run a lot.”
Tharrenos singled out B the King and the supplemented Streetshavenoname as major players in the nine-horse field. Trained by Julia Carey, B the King finished a clear second when debuting in the Bull Page.
“We were very pleased with the way he ran,” Carey said. “He ran very professionally, like an older horse. I was hoping he was that good. I thought we would give him a chance. There was a maiden race we could have gone to, but these [restricted] races only come up once a year.”
Streetshavenoname rallied steadily from seventh to land his Oct. 5 debut in an Ontario-sired maiden sprint for trainer Devon Gittens. The debuting Imyourmedicineman worked well from the gate last Sunday and is well-regarded by Harold Ladouceur. Leading rider Rafael Hernandez has the mount.
South Ocean
The speedy Souper Diva heads a field of eight fillies in the South Ocean.
Trained by Steve Chircop, Souper Diva won the filly version of the Simcoe, the $200,000 Muskoka, by 4 1/4 lengths with a 70 Beyer. She doubled up in the female version of the Bull Page, the Victorian Queen, while putting up a 67 Beyer.
Chircop felt that both of her stakes scores were impressive.
“Both times, she set quick fractions and she kept on going,” Chircop said. “It’s not like she was walking the dog on the lead – she was having to run to make the lead. Both times the boys ran in their stakes, she ran a full second faster than [them] twice in a row now.”
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