Caretaker Appreciation Day held at Hippodrome 3R
At 0h01, on September 5, 2022 • By STEVEN WOLF
The Quebec Jockey Club and Standardbred Canada helped celebrate National Caretaker Appreciation Day at H3R Sunday.
Every caretaker with a horse entered was treated to lunch in the paddock kitchen, their names were announced in the post parade and a special presentation was made in every race to the caretaker of the winning horse.
The caretakers are the unsung heroes of the industry, working day-in, day-out, caring for their horses.
Perhaps the most exciting finish of the season took place in the 6th race Preferred Pace 2 as it took the photo finish camera to declare the winner by a nose.
Snap Test (Stephane Brosseau) was first on the lead early with race favorite Goldinthebadlands (Pascal Berube) wanting the lead and was parked out to the opening quarter mile in :27.4.
Coming to the half mile, Menlo Park and driver Jessica Turenne came first-over with Spectrum Seelster (Francis Picard) second-over. Goldinthebadlands led past the half mile in an easy :58.1.
The action picked up in the backstretch with Menlo Park coming after Goldinthebadlands as Spectrum Seelster started to fade and that gave Siddhartha and driver Samuel Fillion room to slide right into second-over at the three-quarters in 1:26.3.
With the momentum that Siddhartha had, Fillion took him three-wide on the final turn and by the top of the stretch all three horses were just heads apart and that is how they raced down the stretch and in the final strides to the wire, Siddhartha won by a nose over Menlo Park with Goldinthebadlands third by a long nose. The time for the race was 1:55.2.
It was the fourth win of the year for Siddhartha, a six-year-old gelding by So Surreal. He is owned and trained by Louis-Philippe Turcotte of Trois-Rivieres. He paid $8.80 to win.
In the 9th race Preferred Pace 3, Kiss Me Bad, the lone mare against male rival, and driver Steven Gagnon were able to come first-over and fly by race favorite and pacesetter BS Tyrrific and driver Pascal Berube in the backstretch and then pull away from the field to win by two lengths in 1:56.3.
BS Tyrrific was second with Hooter Shooter (Stephane Brosseau) third. It was the fourth win this year for the eight-year-old mare by Badlands Hanover. She is trained and owned by Gagnon of Sorel Tracy and paid $7.20 to win.
Little Diamond (William Roy) saw his four-race winning streak come to an end in a two-year-old pace. He finished fourth as YS Poisson Darvil (Stephane Gendron) won the race in a lifetime best 1:58.4.
Track Notes: Both Pascal Berube and Francis Picard scored driving doubles Sunday. Live racing will resume at H3R next Sunday, Sept. 11 that will be Super Sunday with $500,000 in total purses. Featured will be the Quebec Bred Championship Finals, four $65,000 races for the three-year-olds and four $55,000 races for the two-year-olds. It is the richest horse racing card in all of Quebec in 2022.
