Woodbine: Goldstryke Glory will try to clinch championship in Ontario Fashion

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Goldstryke Glory will try to nail down this year’s Sovereign Award for champion female sprinter in Sunday’s Grade 3, $150,000 Ontario Fashion Stakes at Woodbine for fillies and mares.

Goldstryke Glory, a rapid 3-year-old trained by Kelly Callaghan, has won three in a row going six furlongs, the Ontario Fashion distance. She romped in an allowance on the grass Aug. 18 and then notched her first stakes with ease on the Polytrack in the Inglorious, while netting a Beyer Speed Figure of 92.

Most recently, Goldstryke Glory set a lively pace before holding on in the Apelia Stakes, over a Polytrack that favored closers on the outside.

“She was in the only race where the speed held,” Callaghan recalled of that Oct. 2 race. “Everybody else came from off the pace. She was definitely against the bias, and she lost a shoe coming out of the gate, too.”

Callaghan said she is content with the way that Goldstryke Glory has been working on the dirt training track at Woodbine.

“She breezed good the other day,” Callaghan said. “I find [the training track] a little kinder. She’s relaxed there. She’s happy out there, and there’s no point in changing it. It’s worked for me so far.”

Youcan’tcatchme also is in the Sovereign Award picture. Following an extended layoff, she won two stakes on the front end in August, the six-furlong Etobicoke and the Grade 3 Seaway over seven furlongs.

Youcan’tcatchme chased Goldstryke Glory throughout the Apelia. She did well to hold second when you consider that trainer Sam DiPasquale said she exited the race with a virus.

“She probably started to get it going into that race,” DiPasquale recalled. “She had us a little confused going into it. She wasn’t running a temperature. She was just slightly off her feed. We took a blood test 48 hours after the race, and the indications were there. She’s on her game now. She’s back to her old self.”

Acting Naughty and Shrinking Violet were supplemented for $3,000 apiece.

Acting Naughty, a stretch-runner trained by Don MacRae, won two stakes earlier in the meet. She was a non-threatening fourth in the Apelia, after breaking much sharper than usual.

The Keeneland-based Shrinking Violet has run strictly on the grass this year for trainer Wesley Ward, who is no stranger to Woodbine. She won her last race in a classified allowance at Kentucky Downs and has a Polytrack victory on her record.