Fashion Frenzie will go in the International Trot
At 1h04, on September 9, 2023 • By Ken Weingartner, USTA Media Relations Manager
Fashion Frenzie has been a star in Canada, where he’s a two-time O’Brien Award-recipient and won 22 of 35 career races. Now, he will go international in the International Trot. The 5-year-old son of Archangel-Striking Fashion will compete for the first time outside of his homeland in Saturday’s race.
Trained by Richard Moreau, Canada’s 10-time Trainer of the Year, Fashion Frenzie was sent to New Jersey-based conditioner Nancy Takter, a past U.S. Trainer of the Year honoree and the 2023 Hambletonian winner, to prepare for the International Trot. He will start Saturday from post four with driver Louis-Philippe Roy and is 20-1 on the morning line.
“He’s been racing pretty good,” said Roy, a two-time Driver of the Year in Canada. “He doesn’t race that often, but so far, everything he’s had to do, he’s done it well. When he goes against Grand Circuit horses, he’s been picking up checks. He might need a little step up to beat them, but you don’t know if on the half-mile track it will be a different game.”
Fashion Frenzie, who has earned more than $1 million in Canadian purses, is a two-time Ontario Sire Stakes champion and also counts the 2021 Goodtimes Stakes among his career victories. This past August, he won the Earl Rowe Memorial at five-eighths-mile Georgian Downs for the second straight year. He heads to the International Trot off a fifth-placed-fourth finish in the Maple Leaf Trot.
“It’s hard to tell what will happen on the half-mile (track) with the horses coming from different countries and different types of racing, but some of the best ones drew the inside,” Roy said about the International. “I think he will like the extra distance, but he’s not the only one that will. He doesn’t really get tired, but there are other great trotters in there that don’t seem to get tired either.”
Roy will be participating in the International Trot for the first time.
“It’s exciting. We’re representing Canada. And it’s one of my friend’s horses, so it makes it even more exciting,” he said.
The MGM Yonkers International Trot will go as race seven on the 11-race program, which also includes the $250,000 Bob Miecuna Invitational Trot and $250,000 Aria Invitational Pace, as well as eight New York Sire Stakes championships.
Racing begins at 12:15 p.m. Saturday at Yonkers.
