Woodbine Mohawk Park: Monte Miki capitalizes on Metro mayhem

Monte Miki, making his stakes debut after racing in overnight competition at Scioto Downs, got away cleanly from a trailing post 11, avoided trouble after the half, and rallied powerfully in the last three-eighths of the mile to take the C$824,000 Metro for 2-year-old pacing colts and geldings on Saturday night at Woodbine Mohawk Park in 1:52 2/5.

Driven by Scott Zeron, Monte Miki settled near the back of the pack in ninth while Wearinmysixshooter (Dexter Dunn) blasted to the top in a 27 second opening quarter. He would then yield to a two-wide Foureverboy (Mike Wilder) past that marker. Meanwhile, towards the back of the pack there was a lot of action as Bob Loblaw (Sylvain Filion) was denied a spot on the rail, which forced Caviart Camden (Yannick Gingras) to race three-wide after floating out from post nine.

Going to the 55 3/5 half, Dunn re-moved Wearinmysixshooter to the lead, which left True Blue Lindy (Tim Tetrick), who had vacated the cones out of fifth after the opening quarter, in the first-over position. True Blue Lindy's bid gave cover to the parked-out Bob Loblaw, but he made a break early on the far turn and wiped out the outer tier behind him. The beneficiary of that was Monte Miki, who suddenly had clear track to the outside, which Zeron guided him to.

True Blue Lindy stalled out in third on the final bend, and sensing that, Dunn went for broke with Wearinmysixshooter, opening up a big gap on the others to the 1:23 2/5 three-quarters. Meanwhile, Monte Miki was rolling three-wide and had moved to third with a quarter of a mile to go, but he had 5 1/2 lengths to make up on the leader.

Through the stretch it appeared like Wearinmysixshooter might have an insurmountable lead, but he began to shorten stride in the last eighth while Monte Miki was roaring home. Monte Miki collared and then surged by Wearinmysixshooter before they got to the edge of the toteboard, then opened up to the wire to win by 2 3/4 lengths. Wearinmysixshooter had to settle for second, followed by Foureverboy, True Blue Lindy, and Betterhavemymoney (James MacDonald).

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"This one was a bit more of a shock than those two. I was supposed to easily win with both of them, and this one was a bit of a longshot," said Zeron, who had previously won the Metro with Artspeak and Lost In Time. "The trainer had told me that he was coming into it great, and that he had every bit of a chance to win.

"It did work out, but we should never have 12 horses in a final like that with 2-year-olds because there was a lot of banging and clanging going on and then a bad breaker in the last turn. I was very fortunate to avoid all that stuff. It's very hard to have a tactical edge in those races. You just have to go with the flow. I knew heading into it that the 2 horse had made a few breaks, mostly in the turns, so I was going to go whichever way he didn't go. You might not notice, but I probably moved my horse three times before the half just because there was so much action going on. Yannick wasn't able to get in the second tier path there when he was trying to. There was a lot in the middle portions of that race. Obviously when Sylvain made his break, it kind of opened the floodgates for me."

Mark Evers trains Monte Miki, an Always B Miki-Montenegro colt, for owner-breeder Velocity Standardbreds. He has won all four of his starts, has now earned C$428,100, and returned $33.70 to win after being sent off at 15-1.