Woodbine Mohawk Park: Jimmy Freight rules in Mohawk Gold Cup

Jimmy Freight showed no ill effects from a tough trip in last Saturday's Battle of Lake Erie, going another rough journey but overcoming it to take the C$100,000 Mohawk Gold Cup Invitational for older pacers at Woodbine Mohawk Park in 1:48.

The speed show was on from the word "go," as Wheels On Fire (Doug McNair), Poseidon Seelster (Trevor Henry), and Linedrive Hanover (James MacDonald) all launched out from posts nine, ten, and seven, respectively. Wheels On Fire reached the quarter in 26 seconds flat, but Linedrive Hanover was on the two-wide attack, followed by favorites Allywag Hanover (Todd McCarthy) and Jimmy Freight (Louis Roy).

Linedrive Hanover brushed to the top between calls and then yielded to Allywag Hanover after a 53 2/5 half, but Allywag Hanover was under immediate siege from Jimmy Freight. Allywag Hanover managed to keep Jimmy Freight two-wide on the last turn, but "Jimmy" showed an advantage on the rim at the 1:20 3/5 three-quarters and then put away Allywag Hanover for good in the upper part of the stretch. Jimmy Freight wasn't out of the woods, though, as Linedrive Hanover tipped out for clearance late on the bend and began to move in.

Sensing and seeing that Linedrive Hanover was closing in, Roy called on Jimmy Freight for all he had to the wire, and he gave it to him, holding off Linedrive Hanover by a nose and lowering his lifetime mark by a fifth of a second. Allywag Hanover had to settle for third, followed by Warrawee Vital (Sylvain Filion) and Wheels On Fire.

"I knew there was going to be a bunch of leavers trying to get position. When I was on Todd's helmet, I was guessing if the tempo was going to slow down a little bit, he was going to rush to the front. At that point I wanted to follow him, because like I might have been wrong, and I didn't go around him in the last turn, but that horse, I've driven him before, and he's different now, but it's always been like the turn wasn't his best place to pace fast," said Roy. "I thought if I can put pressure a little bit on him, that would probably be the best place. If I let him go around the last turn easily, he might be hard to beat from there.

There were a bunch of good horses, so you can't really build your strategy on beating only one horse. Definitely, Jimmy just wanted to win."

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A 7-year-old Sportswriter stallion, Jimmy Freight is trained by Richard Moreau for owner Adriano Sorella. This was Jimmy Freight's 32nd career victory, and he has now earned C$1,806,125. He was the 6-5 favorite and paid $4.50 to win.

"He's got quite a bit going on the U.S. Originally, when we came back, we figured we were going to race him in the Preferred and then stick around for the couple big races here," remarked Sorella. "When we looked at the staking schedule, he's got five or six races in the U.S., so we have some decisions to make here, like what do we do? Do we send him down to the U.S., do we leave him there, do we bring him back and go back and forth? He's been a little bit studdy ever since he went to stud duty. He's a little bit different horse on the trailer, so you have to baby him a little bit."