Hodgson Hoping For 'Deuce' In OSS Action
Georgian Downs fans get their first look at this season’s freshman crop on Tuesday, July 12 when a total of 81 two-year-old pacing colts arrive in Innisfil, Ont. for their second Ontario Sires Stakes Grassroots Series skirmish.
Deuce Boy picked up a fourth-place cheque in the July 1 season opener at Woodstock Raceway and owner Sean Hodgson of Bradford, Ont. is hoping the gelding can match or exceed that result in Tuesday’s effort.
“He’s just really aggressive, he really wants to get in there,” says Hodgson. “Hopefully Randy [Waples] comes and drives him. Randy has been good on him so far.”
Waples piloted the youngster in Woodstock, and Hodgson is hoping the veteran reinsman is in the race bike when Deuce Boy lines up at Post 8 in Tuesday’s 12th race, the last of nine $24,000 Grassroots divisions.
If the gelding can continue to earn points throughout the Grassroots season, Hodgson would love to have a contender in the Grassroots post season for a second straight year. Last fall Deuce Boy’s stablemate Trusting finished second in the two-year-old pacing filly Grassroots Championship.
“I’m a big fan of the Sires Stakes program,” notes Hodgson, who purchased his first horse just over five years ago and currently owns a total of nine, ranging from broodmares to racehorses. He purchased Deuce Boy’s dam, Impudent Hall, in foal to Armbro Deuce in the spring of 2009 and says Deuce Boy had to be a tough, aggressive horse early on.
“He had a little bit of a complication about four months in, his intestines were coming through, and I had to have a surgery on him,” explains the owner. “That’s why he’s a gelding.”
Trainer Scott Osterhout started working with the gelding last fall, and throughout the winter the Ridgetown resident was positive in his reports to Hodgson. Deuce Boy qualified June 20 at Grand River Raceway, touring the half-mile oval in 2:03, and then headed to Woodstock for the Grassroots season opener.
“We didn‘t get a chance to qualify him on Mohawk, we were only able to get him to Grand River,” says Hodgson. “Then we entered him to race the first race in the Grassroots, and now he’s got the eight-hole in the 12th race at Georgian in the second Grassroots, and where he goes from there will be up to him really.”
Deuce Boy is one of four horses with an Ontario Sires Stakes start under their belt in the final Grassroots division on Tuesday. The other five youngsters are heading into the race off qualifying efforts.
The two-year-old pacing colts kick things off at 7:25 p.m. in Race 1 and are also featured in Races 3 through 5 and 8 through 12 on Tuesday’s program. In addition, for the second time in four days, Georgian Downs fans can get involved in the exciting Ontario Sires Stakes 'Win The Thrill' contest. Nine lucky fans will be selected as finalists in Tuesday’s Win The Thrill race, getting an opportunity to win a Georgian Downs betting voucher, and earning a shot at the Grand Prize draw for a share in the Standardbred Breeders of Ontario Association New Owner Mentoring Program. Complete contest details and ballots are available in the official Georgian Downs program.