Battle of Waterloo record for Prodigal Seelster

Prodigal Seelster, a Camluck colt out of a Western Hanover mare, captured the $300,000 Battle of Waterloo for 2-year-old pacing colts and geldings on Industry Day at Grand River Raceway in a 1:53.2 stakes, track and Canadian record time, providing driver Randy Waples with his fourth victory in the track’s signature race.

The 3-2 favorite, Mystician (Jody Jamieson), fired off the gate from post two in the afternoon's feature event with Mach It Big (Paul MacKenzie) squeezing into the pocket ahead of Grand Master (Doug McNair) and Prodigal Seelster.Mystician carved out early fractions of :26.4 and :55.4 before Waples sent Prodigal Seelster first-up.

Prodigal Seelster went head-to-head with Mystician down the backstretch, wrestling away the lead by three-quarters in 1:24.1. The son of Camluck-Platinum Seelster then opened up four and a half lengths on the field down the stretch to score in 1:53.2.

Mystician finished second and Kyron (Rick Zeron) was third.

Prodigal Seelster’s 1:53.2 winning time erased the former 1:55 stakes record held by Dreamfair Vogel, Somebeachsomewhere and Wellthereyougo. It also lowered Sombeachsomewhere’s track record by one full second and Sir Luck's Canadian record by two-fifths of a second.

"Nice to have the rail but I’d never really left hard with him and it's hard sometimes on a half-mile track to leave from the rail unless you got one that will eat the gate and go out of there full tilt," said Waples after the win. "I wasn’t sure if that’s what he really wanted to do and I didn’t want to blow the first turn just by trying to chase the front end so it worked out pretty good. I was kind of hoping at one point that I would maybe be able to keep Doug on the outside because I wanted him to chase the pace and make it better for me but he got in there and gave his horse a really good trip.

"When Jody started to back it down a little bit I was able to get Prodigal Seelster out to the front. Jody said to me before the race that he raced Prodigal Seelster first over last week (in the elimination) and the horse was really good, didn’t mind the trip at all, so it just really worked out. I’d like to take credit for it, but the only credit I can take is that I showed up here I had the top horse.”

“When things go good, they go good,” said trainer Dave Menary. “Randy gave him a good steer and it brought tears to my eyes. Maybe not in purse, but this is my biggest win. I’m very proud of the colt.

“They were going lots and Randy knew what they were doing and just watched everything. I told him how confident I was in the colt and when I’m confident I know he’s confident,” continued Menary, who was convinced his colt had the win at the half.

“To be honest I thought he was the best colt in London (’s Forest City Sale) last year. I didn’t think we would be able to buy him. We paid good money for him--we paid $60,000--but I didn’t think we were going to be able to buy him. We were happy when we brought him home and we are even happier today.

“I think I’ve been saying from about March that this is the best horse I’ve ever had. I’ve had some nice ones and all the nice ones have had one or two good qualities about them but this guy’s got about four or five.”

Prodigal Seelster paid $6.20 to win as the 2-1 second choice. His second win in four starts boosted his bankroll to $169,300 for owners Larry Menary of Cheltenham, Denis Breton of Welland, Kenneth Ewen of Georgetown and the Double Or Nothing Stables of Hamilton, Ont.

“He was special right from the get-go. He shows one bad line, but it really wasn’t his fault,” said Waples in reference to Prodigal Seelster’s only off-the-board finish in an Ontario Sire Stakes Gold final on July 15 at Mohawk. “He had a tire go flat just when he rolled in behind the gate and the trip just ended up being really horrendous and it just didn’t work out. That’s the beauty of Dave, he just takes those trips and shugs them off and said ‘okay, we’ll get them next week’ and here he is two weeks later exactly where he wanted him to be. For a guy that’s as young as him to sit there and pick this horse out of the catalogue, train him down, do such a great job, point him to his race and do it, it kind of gives you a lot of hope for this sport when somebody that young is so talented.”

Waples fourth win in the 13th edition of the Battle of Waterloo makes him the winningest driver in the history of the event. The former resident of Fergus-Elora, Ont. also won with Wellthereyougo (2009), Dreamfair Vogel (2001) and Your Nemesis (1999).

“The crowd here is always great. They’re always so enthusiastic," he said. "There’s a whole atmosphere and that’s really what I think is so special about the Battle of Waterloo. The atmosphere is first rate and the racetrack does everything it can to promote it and they do such a great job. I’ve just been lucky and I was very lucky this year to hook up with Dave.” (SC)

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