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You Will Be Queen gives Tyler Jones his first Gold win
At 2h51, on September 29, 2021 • By ONTARIO SIRES STAKES
You Will Be Queen scored her first win of 2021 and driver Tyler Jones got his first-ever Gold Series win in the last regular season event on the three-year-old trotting filly calendar Tuesday night (Sept. 28) at Woodbine Mohawk Park.
The pair started from Post 6 in the field of seven top trotting fillies and Jones choose to float off the gate and settle in sixth behind last year’s Super Final champion Dashing Muscle. Dicentra controlled the tempo, ringing up a :27.4 quarter, and heading for the :57.4 half driver James MacDonald edged Dashing Muscle into the outer lane, waiting for a wind break from one of the favourites in front of him. Jones kept You Will Be Queen on MacDonald’s helmet and when driver Doug McNair tipped Up And Ready out from third the two fillies were quick to close the gap.
Up And Ready started to challenge Dicentra past the 1:26.4 three-quarters and once the field squared up in the stretch MacDonald and Jones moved their fillies into an open lane. Both trotters took aim on the leaders, but it was You Will Be Queen who found the biggest gear and swept by her peers to a three-quarter length win in a personal best 1:54.4. Favourite Up And Ready finished second and Dashing Muscle was third in the $156,400 contest.
The 27-year-old Waterdown, ON resident engineered the win for his father, trainer Dustin Jones of Waterdown, who shares ownership of the Royalty For Life filly with Hebert Horses Inc. of Montreal, QC. The younger Jones had driven You Will Be Queen in both of her pre-season qualifiers and in a July 26 overnight event at Woodbine Mohawk Park, but Tuesday was the first time he had climbed into her race bike for a stake event.
Tuesday’s win was his first in the 2021 Ontario Sires Stakes program, but Jones has amassed a record of 27 wins, 51 seconds and 30 thirds through 272 starts this summer, steering his mounts to earnings of $201,621.
On Thursday, Sept. 30 Woodbine Mohawk Park hosts the two-year-old Grassroots Semi-Finals, with the top young trotters and pacers hoping to earn a spot in the Grassroots Championships next weekend. The Semi-Finals are slated for Races 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10 and 11 on the Thursday evening card, which gets under way at 7 pm.
