Huge day at Woodbine for trainer Mark Casse, jockey Sahin Civaci
Mark Casse will have a hot hand in the King’s Plate.
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The hall-of-fame trainer crashed into the Plate conversation in a big way on Sunday, first sending out Paramount Prince to win the $150,000 Plate Trial Stakes, then winning the $500,000 Woodbine Oaks with Elysian Field.
The latter also gave jockey Sahin Civaci a day to remember, winning his first classic race of his Woodbine career and anchoring a five-win day that saw him sweep the early daily double, then taking three of the four stakes on the card.
“He’s an extremely good rider,” Casse said of Civaci, who has rocketed to third in the Woodbine standings in recent weeks. “He can do anything. He got this filly to relax. And he’s got a great attitude.”
Sivaci got Elysian Field to relax along the rail early in the Oaks. He angled her nicely around the turn and after running into slight traffic trouble, took her wide for the stretch run. In the stretch, Elysian Field chased down another Casse-trained runner, Ticker Tape Home and pulled away to a 2 1/4-length win. Wickenheiser, with Kazushi Kimura aboard, finished quickly for second.
Elysian Field had a win in five previous starts including a second to Ticker Tape Home in the Fury Stakes.
Casse is considering the Aug. 20 Plate for Elysian Field. His two Plate wins came with fillies, Lexie Lou in 2014 and Wonder Gadot in 2018.
“I like that over the past 4-5 years, things have changed,” Casse said. “It used to be we had to run them back from the Oaks after three weeks. Now we get another week and that’s a big difference.”
Both Lexie Lou and Wonder Gadot were owned by Gary Barber. Barber now has a contender for this year’s race with Paramount Prince, who went gate-to-wire at odds of 11-1 in the Plate Trial. Jockey Patrick Husbands hardly had an anxious moment aboard the three-year-old son of Society’s Chairman.
Paramount Prince was comfortable throughout the trip and when asked in the stretch, rolled out to a five-length win. Husbands knew the speedy gelding would have a tactical advantage.
“Looking at the Racing Form, it was fun,” Husbands said. “I knew if we had any horse he’d be good.”
Even though Paramount Prince only had a maiden win in his first four starts, he was third in the Clarendon Stakes last year and earlier this season was second behind another Plate contender, Kaukokaipuu in the Queenston Stakes.
Earlier, Civaci won the $150,000 Trillium Stakes aboard Il Malocchio, who joined in on a stretch duel between Angelou and Super Hoity Toity in deep stretch and got the best of them to take the win. Trained by Martin Drexler, the five-year-old mare now has five wins in 22 starts. She captured the Maple Leaf and La Prevoyante Stakes last year.
Then he rode Dream Shake to a narrow win in the $175,000 Connaught Cup. He kept the five-year-old gelding close to the early pace and took the lead at the top of the stretch, keeping that advantage for a one-length win. Trained by Michael Stidham, Dream Shake now has four wins in 12 career starts.
