My Lord: Custard Dolce is something else. Breathing a rarefied air that is different from what other horses take in, Custard Dolce appears to be in a class all of her own as she demonstrated one more time Saturday afternoon at Calgary’s Century Downs with yet another powerfully easy triumph in an elimination to this weekend’s $130,000 Gord and Illa Rumpel Final.

“You dream about horses like this,” said winning driver Phil Giesbrecht of the extremely talented three-year-old filly. “I’m so excited and fortunate to drive her.

“She’s just an amazing filly.”

Magic.

Winning by an eased up four and a quarter lengths in 1:56 2/5, Custard Dolce won it with a gasping move around the final turn. Sitting third, Giesbrecht said he didn’t even ask the three-year-old filly when he pulled her to the outside.

“I just let her do her thing.

“She just took off. I said to myself ‘Holy cow,’” said Giesbrecht who was along for the ride as Custard Dolce swept easily into a lead she wouldn’t come close to relinquishing.

“I was pretty impressed,” Giesbrecht said of Century Downs’ two-year-old track record (1:54) holder.

“She was pretty much all on her own. I tapped her once in the stretch when she started looking around at the crowd,” said Giesbrecht, who recently surpassed $10-million in career earnings as a driver. Giesbrecht, who was Century Mile’s leading driver in Edmonton last year, is coming off back-to-back seasons of $1-million plus winnings and is on pace for the hat trick.

“Otherwise, she was golden,” said Giesbrecht, who won last year’s Western Regional Driving Championship presented by Standardbred Canada at Century Downs Racetrack & Casino.

No kidding.

Custard Dolce lost her first start last year and then lost the Shirley McClellan by four inches on June 21 this summer. Otherwise, perfect. Fifteen career starts. Thirteen wins. Incredibly all 13 wins were in stakes.

And Giesbrecht said it was the weather that caused her loss in the McClellan.

“It was a hurricane,” said Giesbrecht. “Fifty K winds, pouring rain and she had to give Mademechangemymind cover the entire way.

“She didn’t get beat. The weather beat her.”

There were two other things that cost Custard Dolce, the two-year-old track record holder (1:54) at Century Downs, in the McClellan.

One, is that she hadn’t raced in three weeks before the McClellan and only had two races in a span of six months - both, of course, that she won before that $118,000 stake.

The other factor is that Custard Dolce is much better coming from off the pace as opposed to racing from the front which is also what happened in the McClellan.

“She loves to have a target,” said Custard Dolce’s trainer, breeder and co-owner Jamie Gray. “If she’s got a target she’s going by. If there’s a horse in front of her she’s going to catch it.

“I train all of my horses to be finishers. I train them all from the rear,” continued Gray, who shares partnership in Custard Dolce with Jackson Wittup of Calgary, Max Gibb of Millarville and former driver/trainer Derek Wilson of Heritage Pointe, Alberta. “I want all my horses to finish their miles.”

Custard Dolce, who was purchased at the Alberta Yealing Sale for $26,500, has already won $246,000. With more to come.

“We’ve got a lot of stakes races left like the Century Casino Filly Pace and the $75,000 Super Finals in Alberta,” said Gray, who used to have Custard Dolce’s dam, Blue Star West. “But after this season is over I’m taking her to Mohawk in Ontario. I really want to see what kind of damage she can do there.

“I think she’ll learn to race from the front and cut one out. But not right now. She’s very intelligent.

“She’s got tremendous gate speed,” Gray continued. “She’s so fast especially for a horse her size. She’s a big mare but in three strides she’s in full flight.”

“She gets lost if she’s all by herself,” chimed Giesbrecht.

"She's just an amazing filly, an absolute dream to drive,” added Giesbrecht, 35, a native of Manitoba who drove on the fair circuits in Manitoba and Saskatchewan before making his move to Alberta in 2008.

“Jamie's done a fantastic job.”

Hurrikane Alley won the other division of the Illa and Gord Rumpel eliminations in 1:56 4/5 for her fourth career victory in 17 lifetime starts.

Sent away at 5-2 odds Hurrikane Alley is owned by Robert Jones of Stony Plain and Archie Benekos of Calgary and got a clever drive from Dave Kelly - slipping through along the rail inside pacesetter Imashipwreck and on to a head victory over Blowing in the Wind and determined favourite Georgia Hanover.

Hurricane Alley is trained by Nathan Sobey, who is recovering from a bad spill last month when he broke a T2 vertebrae and a cracked left shoulder blade.

There were two other stakes eliminations on Saturday’s Century Downs’ card - those for the Ralph Klein Memorial for three-year-old colts and geldings.

In the first Ralph Klein elimination it was Sobey again - this time with Hands Off Harry who went wire-to-wire winning like a 1-9 favourite should look like winning most comfortably by five and a half lengths in 1:54 3/5.

“Mike (driver Hennessy) told me Hands Off Harry was well within himself which is the way it looked to me,” said Sobey, always one of Alberta’s top trainers.

The victory was Hands Off Harry’s fourth in a row and 7th in 12 career starts and looking like this weekend’s top choice again. Second five times making him never worse than second in his brief career Hands Off Harry is a very formidable opponent.

“He’s a nice horse,” said Sobey. “Very athletic.

“With the win I get to choose my post for Saturday’s Final so I’m very pleased with the way the day went especially with Hurricane Alley winning a leg of the Rumpel as well.

“He’s Ontario-bred so I couldn’t race him in the restricted Alberta-bred races,” Sobey explained adding that his parents bought Hands Off Harry’s dam Hands Off Hanover in foal and then shipped to Alberta.

Most unfortunately, Hands Off Hanover died of colic a couple of months after she got to Alberta.

So, instead of the stakes route to the Western Canada Pacing Derby, Hands Off Harry glided through his condition races once winning by more than 10 lengths, another time by five lengths and a third by four lengths.

Now this romp.

A stakes winner - he won this spring’s Ray Gemmill at B.C.’s Fraser Downs - it will be most interesting to see what pace scenario develops this Saturday between him and another speedster, Discontinued, who also made it through the eliminations after finishing fourth to Momas Work Of Art.

The latter got a great drive by Dave Kelly, who sat right behind Discontinued but got shuffled back when Discontinued tired. But Momas Work Of Art and Kelly were somehow able to wend their way through heavy traffic in the stretch to get up in time and win by a length over Outlawminutbyminut in 1:55 2/5.

Like Custard Dolce, Wittup - striking lightning again - is also a part owner of Momas Work Of Art along with Don Monkman Jr. and trainer Shelly Arsenault.

“It’s unbelievable,” Wittup said in this space a year ago.

A fixture in horse racing in Alberta for 50 years, Wittup went on to say “It’s not supposed to happen this way, but I’ll enjoy it. I shake my head and enjoy every second of it. It’s overwhelming really.”

Momas Work Of Art has now won five of his 14 starts and banked almost $150,000.

STOCK REPORT - Incredible Shark Week won again - what’s new? - with a mile in 1:52 2/5. Starting again from the outside, Shark Week went wire to wire - as is his custom - to win by a length.

It was Shark Week’s 60th win and trainer and co-owner Rod Hennessy thought this may have been his best after opening with a :26 2/5 first quarter. That’s even though Shark Week is the fastest horse in Western Canada with a mile in 1:49 2/5.

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Follow me on X (Twitter) and on Facebook.
Author: The Turcottes: The Remarkable Story of a Horse Racing Dynasty.