Heading into this year, there was little doubt as to who the 3-year-old to beat at Hastings would be. The Steve Henson trainee Mount Doom, who swept all four of last year’s open stakes for juveniles at the Vancouver, B.C., track, started his 3-year-old campaign on May 24 by outsprinting older horses and went off in the June 14 Ross McLeod Stakes as an understandably short 2-5 favorite.
A funny thing happened in that 6 1/2-furlong race, however. Mount Doom’s 3-year-old stablemate, Rondelito, caught him and beat him in the stretch at odds of 8-1. Then, in the July 5 Chris Loseth Handicap at 1 1/16 miles, Rondelito did it again, only more convincingly, opening up on Mount Doom, this time a 3-5 post-time favorite, on the final turn and trouncing him by 11 1/4 lengths.
But Henson, who owns all of Rondelito and a piece of Mount Doom, still thinks Mount Doom is the better horse, and he’ll have a chance to prove it as he again faces his stablemate in Monday’s $50,000, 1 1/16-mile Sir Winston Churchill Handicap for 3-year-olds. The Churchill is one of five stakes on a special Civic Holiday card that includes Hastings’s first 2-year-old stakes of the year, the $60,000 BC Cup Nursery, which has drawn a mix-gendered field of five unraced juveniles.
Henson chalked Mount Doom’s Loseth loss up to discomfort in the gate, as Mount Doom was kicking prior to the start. It’s a problem he’s had before, and Henson has schooled Mount Doom in the gate several times since that disappointment.
“In the big picture, he’s only run one bad race,” said Henson. “Can I throw it out? I already have. If he comes out Monday and just runs a social race, my opinion may change.”
Mount Doom won convincingly going 1 1/16 miles to close out 2024 in the Glen Todd Ascot Graduation Stakes for 2-year-olds, but he’s got a sprinter’s pedigree, whereas Rondelito’s bloodline is more route friendly. But while Henson acknowledged that Mount Doom, who will have Antonio Reyes aboard for a ninth consecutive start, might be better suited to sprints, he said that he’s “not a big pedigree guy” and that routes at Hastings are a different animal than at classier racetracks.
“We’re a bullring,” said Henson. “If you get a good rider on him, you can back the pace up a lot. But could he be a sprinter? Yeah.”
Elsewhere in the six-horse field, Accidental Genius, who closed hard to finish just three-quarters of a length behind Rondelito in the Loseth, has been relocated to the barn of Tim Rycroft, who boasts a 29 percent strike rate with new trainees. Keith Pedersen’s steadily improving Counter Cat steps back up in class off a 6 3/4-length maiden win on July 5.
“He ran second to Mount Doom as a 2-year-old and he was still pretty green,” Pedersen said of the Ascot. “He’s just been progressively getting better and better. I like his chances in here.”
BC Cup Distaff
While Barbara Heads’s Avana is sure to go off heavily favored in the 1 1/16-mile, $50,000 BC Cup Distaff, Pedersen’s Air Force handed Avana her only Hastings loss in the 6 1/2-furlong Emerald Downs Stakes on June 7.
That’s the good news. The bad news is Avana came back to trounce Air Force by 8 1/2 lengths winning the Monashee Handicap at Monday’s distance on July 1.
Avana is a closer, whereas Air Force likes to grab the early lead.
“If we get a 47 and change half, I think we’ll be tough,” said Pedersen. “If Avana’s close, Air Force needs to have her running shoes on to outrun her. That’s basically what it comes down to.”
It’s worth noting that the first half of the Monashee went in 47.56 seconds, and Avana had no issues finding the winner’s circle in that race.
Hong Kong Jockey Club
The 1 1/16-mile Hong Kong Jockey Club, a $50,000 stakes for 3-year-old fillies, has drawn a field of seven horses, each of whom, on paper, looks like they’d like the lead. That can’t happen, obviously, and Pedersen is content to let his entrant, I’m in Control, let others duke it out up front.
“I don’t think my filly really needs to be on the lead,” said Pedersen of I’m in Control, who finished second in the July 5 Supernaturel. “Her siblings have never needed the lead. If she can stalk the pace with all this pace that’s in there, that’ll give her a better shot at winning.”
Pat Jarvis’s undefeated and unruly Chi Chi Time, who boasts a field-best Beyer Speed Figure of 80, will go off favored if she goes off at all. After winning the River Rock Casino Stakes on June 14, Chi Chi Time was scratched in the gate in the Supernaturel after she reacted to a rival’s movements by rolling over.
“She had a few scrapes, but nothing serious,” said Jarvis. “When she does something like that, she doesn’t panic. She just says, ‘Wait, I need help.’ She doesn’t thrash at all.”
Jarvis has schooled Chi Chi Time several times in the gate since the incident and plans to stuff cotton or plastic in the filly’s ears to prevent her from acting up in Monday’s race, which will be her first going longer than 6 1/2 furlongs.
BC Cup Classic
The most competitive race of the day should be the $50,000, 1 1/16-mile BC Cup Classic.
Barbara Heads’s August Rain, who won four stakes at Hastings in 2024 to finish as the track’s top 3-year-old male, earned a career-high Beyer of 83 winning an allowance to start his 2025 campaign before turning in a dud in the June 7 George Royal, where he finished fifth in a race won by Bold Arch, who’s also entered here.
August Rain bounced back to finish a close second to another BC Cup Classic rival, the Jarvis trainee Diocles, in the Lieutenant Governors’ Handicap on July 1, and August Rain figures to go off as the tepid favorite in a seven-horse field that includes a less threatening Heads entrant in At Attention, as well as last year’s winner, Space.
“He’s my favorite,” Jarvis said of Diocles. “Barb sends rockets and we’ve only got fireworks. We’ll be taking a run at her, though. He’s doing really good.”
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