Strait of Dover uncertain for The Prince of Wales
The first British Columbia-bred Queen’s Plate winner, Strait of Dover, is doubtful for the Prince of Wales, which is the second leg of the Canadian Triple Crown, taking place at Fort Erie on July 15th.
Daniel J. Vella’s charge was an easy winner in the Queen's Plate Stakes, held at Woodbine on Sunday, June 24th. Under Justin Stein, the dashing colt was pretty impressive right from the start. Although Irish Mission challenged his dominance in
the final stages of the 1¼-mile event, Strait of Dover managed to keep an upper hand till the finishing line.
An excellent effort guided him to a comfortable 1¼-length victory over Irish Mission. Even though Mark Frostad’s trainee failed to trouble to leading runner, she did well to crush her old rival, Dixie Strike.
After an excellent wire-to-wire victory, Strait of Dover is being considered as hot favourite for next month’s second leg of the Canadian Triple Crown. The 3-year-old has a great chance of becoming the second British Columbia-bred winner of the Prince of
Wales, however, the picture is still unclear.
The connections are yet to make any decision on Strait of Dover’s participation in the upcoming mega event and Danny Vella is reluctant to run his charge over Fort Erie’s dirt surface.
“I don’t see much dirt in his future. I’ll have to talk to the owners, at great length, because it’s such an important decision, whether to go to Fort Erie,” the trainer said.
He continued: “He’s gallops on the training track here sometimes, and he breezed on the dirt this winter in Ocala. My gut feeling tells me he doesn’t handle it very well.”
Strait of Dover was terrible in his two appearances at Hastings last year. The handler was not reluctant to admit that Canyon Farms’ colt struggled on dirt. Despite the fact that the maverick runner produced many positive results after his two below par
efforts over the five-furlong Hastings dirt, the connections have plenty of reasons not to take any risk.
“In his first race, he broke slow, and in his second race, he ducked into the rail from the one hole. My good friends Dr. Ross McKague and Russ Bennett suggested I send him to Danny,” Wally Leong said on his decision to send the colt to Daniel.
Tags: