Posted Sunday, March 7, 2010
By Mike Paradise
The circuit’s driver colony got a much needed boost when two-time defending Balmoral park champion Mike Oosting returned from Florida earlier in the week and competed in his first program of the year last night at the Crete, IL track.
Oosting picked up nine catch drives on Balmoral’s 13-race Saturday program and brought home his first winner of 2010 in race seven with Rock Ridge Road and later picked-up his second behind the New Zealand import Beau Rivage N.
Oosting missed six weeks last year when he broke his right shoulder in an accident in early July at Maywood Park. The 47-year-old Michigan native came back much earlier than expected from the spill and at less than 100 per cent however despite a cold month of December Mike was red hot, posting 37 winning drives during Balmoral’s final 13 racing programs for 2009.
Oosting ended up with 289 winning drives on the year and horses he drove won $1,568,844. Good numbers but Mike had over 900 less drives than 2008 when he won 568 races and had money-won earnings of nearly $4 million.
Some time within the next couple of months Oosting will nail down his 4,000th career driving winner. Mike entered this season with 3,946 dash winners. He also began this season 25 shy of having trained 500 winning horses.
Oosting successfully qualified a trio of his own horses last Wednesday but didn’t drop any of them into the Balmoral entry box yet. All three had a quick last quarters. Heath was a winner with a: 27.1 last panel. Stable-mate Thereplayingoursong finished second in his heat with a: 27.2 last quarter, the same clocking for Clayton David, a third-place finisher.
Speaking of Qualifiers: Trainer Paul Stafford sent out three winning horses in Wednesday’s qualifiers for his owners the (Marty) Engle Stable and the (Ken) Rucker Stable. Fox Valley Nordic (Sam Widger) won in 2:01.4 in the third event, Slick Dog rattled off a 1:56.2 mile in the next qualifier, 7 and 1/2 lengths the best, and in the sixth race Pure Defiancy was almost six lengths better than anyone in his field in 1:56 flat, the fastest of the morning. Josh Sutton drove the last pair of Stafford trainees.
On the Short End: The horse shortage continues and Balmoral was only able to go with 13 races last night instead of the scheduled 14. The second race $5,800 conditioned pace “feature” just had a field of five, three males and two mares and the next best race, the 11th race conditioned pace, only landed six horses.
Makes you wonder how things are going to look on the local scene in less than three weeks when Hoosier Park opens up its season on Thursday, March 25. The Indiana track will race on Wednesdays through Sundays.
To view Archived Notes and Quotes click here.
