Run Director (Bay colt, 3 by Kadabra-Keep The Spirit-Revenue S) Homebred Owner: Thomas A. & Elizabeth C. Rankin, St. Catherines, Ontario Trainer: Benoit Baillargeon • After just one start as a freshman, Run Director emerged as a star in the Ontario Sires Stakes program this season. The homebred won three Gold level events and came into his Breeders Crown elimination fresh off a decisive score in the Gold Final at Woodbine at Mohawk Park. He also finished second to Met’s Hall in the Simcoe Stakes on September 1. • Run Director finished a solid third at better than 17-1 in his Breeders Crown elimination, raced timed in 1:53.4 over a sloppy track. • Trainer Ben Baillargeon: I was real pleased. He’s never raced against this type of horses. Like once, he was second in the Simcoe. In the Canadian Trotting Classic we got away last and were never in the race. He showed his guts (Saturday). That’s a hell of a mile, (1):53 over that track off a half in :57. I didn’t think he would get beat for second because usually he doesn’t get beat. But he got beat. Hopefully next week the trip works out. He’s been a nice horse all year. He likes to race. There is no quitting in him. He likes to go. He’s a good-feeling horse all the time. • Benoit Baillargeon, 60, was born in St. Hubert, Quebec and resides in Guelph, Ontario. “Ben” Baillargeon, 60, is seeking his first Breeders Crown trophy. He has two second-place finishes and three third-place finishes in 10 finals. • Baillargeon is one of the top money-winning trainers in Canada on an annual basis, including this year when he ranks among the top five. His horses have earned more than $1 million for 13 consecutive years and topped $2 million on five occasions during that span. • Baillargeon’s first full season on Ontario’s Woodbine-Mohawk circuit came in 2001 and he finished fifth in the trainer standings. Prior to moving to Ontario, Baillargeon had a successful stable at Hippodrome de Montreal. • Baillargeon was introduced to harness racing by his father Gaetan, who trained and drove Standardbreds. His older brother Mario is an accomplished driver, with nearly 7,750 wins. • Sylvain Filion, 48, is from Angers, Quebec and resides in Milton, Ontario. Filion has driven two Breeders Crown winners, Goliath Bayama in the 2001 Open Pace and Wheeling N Dealin in the 2012 Three-Year-Old Trot. • Filion has driven in more than 50,000 races with over 8,700 wins and $98 million in purses. The four-time winner of Canada’s top driver award lists Runnymede Lobell as the horse that changed his life. Filion was 18 in the summer of 1987 when he and the son of Nero out of Racy Heart learned their first racing lessons together in Montreal. Filion said he didn’t know at the time that the colt was something special. “I didn’t really realize then, but I knew he was very easy to drive, so that made it easy for me. You could feel he had a lot of power,” Filion said. Runnymede Lobell, owned by Filion’s father, Yves, of Saint-Andre-D’Argenteuil, QC and Norm Mondoux of Laval, QC, went on to win 31 of 48 career races, over $1.6 million and the 1988 North America Cup with Yves in the sulky and Sylvain as the trainer. It was the first NA Cup victory for a horse owned and trained by Quebecers. “It was just a great night,” Sylvain said of the ’88 NA Cup. “It was at Greenwood back then. We were all there, the family. It was just a great, great time.” • Another great thing happened when Yves Filion was officially inducted into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame. Runnymede Lobell not only got Sylvain’s driving career started and earned the family an NA Cup, Sylvain likes to remind his father of one other important fact. “I told him I was the only one that didn’t get beat with him. I won the qualifier,” Sylvain said, laughing. Though Runnymede Lobell was the first, he said other horses have had a tremendous impact on his life — most notably Supreme Jade, who gave him his first win in 1987 at Rideau Carleton; millionaire pacing mare Tricky Tooshie and his father’s $1.5 million-winning pacer Goliath Bayama, who was second to The Panderosa in the 1998 NA Cup. Yet, the driver said he is still looking for another great horse to come along. “I hope the horse that will really change my life is the next one,” he said. “I’m still looking for it.” • For Thomas and Elizabeth Rankin their lone Breeders Crown win came in the 2001 Two Year Old Colt & Gelding Trot with Liberty Balance, who went wire-to-wire as the heavy favorite and went on to a $1 million career. • Run Director’s sire Kadabra won this event in 2002 enroute to Trotter of the Year. He is Canada’s number one stallion and has sired six Breeders Crown winners, including two-time Crown champion and 2013 Horse of the Year Bee A Magician. He also scored with the longest shot in Breeders Crown history in 2008 when Kadealia lit up the board at 75-1 at the Meadowlands. Evaluate (Bay Colt, 3 by Andover Hall-Blathin-Classic Photo) $25,000 Standardbred Horse Sale-Harrisburg Yearling Owner: Stall TZ, Inc. (Stefan Melander) Vero Beach, Florida Trainer: Marcus Melander • Evaluate served noticed when he took his mark of 1:51.4 in a Pennsylvania Sires Stakes at Pocono Downs back on May 26. He has gone on to be a steady check earner in major stakes with a fourth in the $500,000 Earl Beal, Jr. Memorial, a fifth in the $1 million Hambletonian Final, a third in the PASS Championship and a second to Met’s Hall in the Simcoe Stakes. • Evaluate finished fourth from post six with Tim Tetrick driving in the first elimination won by Tactical Landing, flashing late trot and raced timed in 1:53.4 on a track rate good. • Trainer Marcus Melander: He raced good. He was sitting last. I was very happy with him. He got a little sick after Lexington. We made the final and hopefully with a good draw we can get a good check. He won’t beat the best ones, but he can still get a good check. (His year) It’s been OK. He started out so good, so we had more expectations for him, but still he made like $270,000. It’s not bad. But he won early in (1):51 here in May (in a Pennsylvania Sire Stakes division) so maybe we had a little more high hopes, but he’s been there all the time. He was fifth in the Hambo final and raced very good; he’s been doing good races all year. It’s a good group of 3-year-olds. He’s been doing good. • Trainer Marcus Melander, 26, is from Sweden and resides in New Egypt, NJ. Melander is a rising star, passing the million mark for the first time in 2017 and is capping off his first $2 million campaign. His stable website is MelanderStable.com. • In only his third full season as a trainer, Marcus Melander enjoyed a memorable year in 2017 that culminated with Fourth Dimension being named the Dan Patch Award winner for best 2-year-old male trotter. Melander came to the U.S. from Sweden less than five years ago and worked for trainer Jimmy Takter before starting his own stable in late 2014. He is based in New Egypt, N.J., at a farm that was home previously to each the legendary Stanley Dancer and Continental Farms stables. Last year, Melander’s horses won 38 races and $1.31 million in purses, nearly tripling his earnings from the previous season. His victories in 2017 included the Valley Victory Stakes with Fourth Dimension, a division of the Stanley Dancer Memorial with Long Tom, and an elimination of the Hambletonian Stakes with Enterprise, who later was fourth-placed-third in the final. • Melander: “I learned a lot when I worked for Jimmy Takter my first year here. Then I went on my own. You’ve got to put horses in the right condition, you have to figure out travel, there is always stuff you look at and maybe change. Last year with Enterprise for the Goodtimes we went back and forth (to Canada) and he was no good in the final because he had a problem with ulcers. Maybe we should have stayed up there. You’re always learning things. I’m only 26. I’ve got a lot to learn still. But I’m feeling more comfortable every season. Last year we had a really good year with both the 2- and 3- year-olds. But you always look to improve things. You think about things as you’re out there driving. With Long Tom and Enterprise, they started early very good and I think maybe I topped them a little too early. They raced great until the (Hambletonian) and after that they flattened out a little bit and we had some bad racing luck. That’s stuff you learn too. Maybe we won’t qualify as early. But it was a little different because Enterprise only made one start as a 2-year-old so you had to be going a little earlier.