No luck of the draw for this Western Joe

Chris Choate was hoping for a good roll of the dice in the draw Wednesday for post positions for the $182,500 Confederation Cup final at Flamboro Downs. But it was not his day.

Western Joe, his elimination heat winner, must leave from the disadvantageous post seven in tomorrow night’s affair.

And to make matters worse, it is ridiculously carded as the 12th race on the program.

“On tracks like Flamboro, post position is key,” he said prior to the draw. “I think he can overcome a bad post because he likes to be raced aggressively — he wants to be involved. We cannot put him to sleep in the race and look for good things to happen.”

Choate is an unknown commodity to most in the racing fraternity. The 44-yearold New Jersey horseman is the trainer of record for the high-spending Cancelliere family who own Magical Acres training centre in that state. Choate trains their team of 14 two-year-olds but is allowed to have two horses of his own, one being Western Joe.

Western Joe is not a world champion but is a horse anyone would be proud to own. New Yorker Anthony Ruggeri, who holds title on the homebred, has 262,000 reasons to be so far.

“He bred this horse who was raised in Alabama through some connections he has there and to be honest it was cost that the mother was sent to that area,” said Choate.

“When I got him as a yearling, it is doubtful he would have sold for much as a yearling. His maternal line is not that great, but he is one of those that have proven most people wrong. He made about $80,000 at two, and we turned down a $100,000 offer for him. Then at three there was an offer of $200,000, which was really tempting, but decided to stay in.”

Some might say that was not the most astute move.

“He sprained a suspensory ligament behind and lost eight weeks of time, which meant that he missed all the stake races except for the Progress Pace Nov. 30, where he finished fourth. But then the decision had to be made whether we keep going with him or shut him down and aim for this spring/summer,” said Choate.

“I pushed to keep going with him because he had only 18 starts at that point. And it proved right as he just matured and no longer looked like a baby. He’s not very big but really perfect in size. Stocky but has filled out to be a good chunk of horse. As an individual, I like him a lot.”

Since Dec. 1, the horse has won $108,000 largely through being a model of consistency. There have been no huge paydays, but the team is hoping that tomorrow night just might be.

“We’re here because it is a race for just four-year-olds, and there are not many of those in the game. He accounted himself pretty well against older horses, so he deserved to get in with his own kind. There were only 30 eligible for the race, of which 15 drew in, with four of them coming from the Ron Burke Stable, and all made the final.”

And therein lies the rub. The Burke armada includes Filibuster Hanover, also an elimination heat winner who has drawn the coveted post three. He is fast approaching the $1 million mark in career winnings.

But Choate has a wonderful attitude about it all and appreciates having a horse such as Western Joe in his care.

“It’s been a lot of fun and maybe will be better with a bit of luck. We’re back at Mohawk in a couple weeks, and Joe may be that kind of horse that doesn’t get a lot of attention, has a different driver almost every week but at the end of the year has tallied up a nice bit of money. You cannot dislike a horse if he does that.”

Everything has to go just right for Western Joe to win the Confederation Cup. But even if he doesn’t, he’s already a winner for Choate and company for all the right reasons.