A horse owned by a Beaverlodge couple is about to participate in the biggest race of its career. Singles Cruise owned by Janice and Barry Sather has qualified for the Winter Derby Final on Saturday. Looking ahead to this race, Janice says Singles Cruise could win if she’s given the chance to run.
“I hope that they all run straight and clean and if she does get a chance to run and she breaks; ya were a contender. I don’t think were in the top three but she could light the board for us.”
The three year old filly was purchase by the Sathers in 2017 at a sale in Oklahoma. So far in her career, she has won three out of four races in Grande Prairie at The Horses At Evergreen Park. She has also won five of seven races she competed in during her first year of racing and won the Canada Cup finale on October 21, 2018.
In order to qualify for the Winter Derby she needed to win the challenge in Grande Prairie. That made her eligible to participate in challenge races throughout the United States where she was chosen as the one Canadian horse to run. Singles Cruise then won the Winter Derby Trials on January 19th in a photo finish also taking less than a second off the track record set in 2011. Janice says the hardest part about preparing for this upcoming race was making it to this point.
“The big thing is always getting into those races. I mean you can have lots of good, good, good horses and they don’t qualify. It’s just like the Olympics when you’ve won your trial and you go through. That’s sort of the same way with quarter horse racing. Getting there is a large part of it and it’s very difficult to do.”
The Sathers and Singles Cruise will now head down to the Winter Derby Final at Los Alamitos in California on February 9th.