Calm before the Stormont: ‘Beautiful’ lone supplement to 2025 Breeders Crown
by Melissa Keith
At the Monday (Oct. 13) noon deadline for supplemental entries to the 2025 Breeders Crown at Woodbine Mohawk Park, there was just one: Stormont Beautiful (3, 1:52.2s; $238,787). The 3-year-old daughter of Resolve—Stormont Fried is a homebred from owner Eric Baker’s Stormont Meadows, located in Long Sault, ON.
On Tuesday (Oct. 14), Napanee, ON horseman Kevin Benn spoke with HRU about Stormont Beautiful being the only horse supplemented this year, at a cost of $72,000 (U.S.). She will take on eight other 3-year-old trotting fillies in the second of two Saturday (Oct. 18) night Breeders Crown eliminations.
“I’m not surprised,” Benn said. “It’s a lot of money. But it’s at home and she knows the track. She’s made the money and her times are pretty close to theirs. Some of these fillies are trotting in 1:50 at The Red Mile; she’s trotting in 1:52 at Mohawk. She’s pretty close. It’s not like she’s coming home in :28; she’s coming home in :26. She always seems to have trot coming home. She’s never on her hands and knees. I think our mare will go in the 1:51s.”
Stormont Beautiful is the youngest racing offspring of 16-year-old Stormont Fried (3, 1:59h; $89,267). The winner of five races in her three years of racing for trainer Norm Jones, Stormont Fried has been a good producer, with six winners from eight offspring of racing age.
“I had [Stormont] Molly and [Stormont] Barbeque,” Benn said. “Molly was a good [Ontario Sires Stakes] Grassroots type who won in 1:53, and Barbeque won in 1:54 [as a 4-year-old at Mohawk, after racing primarily at the OSS Gold level at 2 and 3].”
Benn is also training Stormont Fried’s 2-year-old son Stormont Friedboy.
“He’s a Green Manalishi S,” Benn said. “He was plagued with curbs and growing pains. He jumped over a shadow in his one and only qualifier [Sept. 26 at Mohawk]. We shut him down for the year. He showed he’s worth keeping over the winter to race at 3.”
Stormont Beautiful is Stormont Fried’s only foal by Resolve (4, 1:50.4m; $2,621,086), who was exported to Italy last November.
“I think he had some fertility problems,” Benn said. “There’s a lot of good Resolves. PL Spencer [3, 1:51.3s; $387,607] won the Gold Super Final; he’s a Resolve. [Canadian Hall of Fame trainer] John Bax says he likes them.”
Despite making an early break, Stormont Beautiful won her first qualifier at Kawartha Downs on July 19, 2024, beating an older mare and a 3-year-old male pacer. Benn was in the sulky for the off-the-pace 2:02.2 win, an early demonstration of the filly’s closing ability. Although seventh for driver Bob McClure in her Aug. 29, 2024 pari-mutuel debut at Mohawk, she never missed the top two in her remaining six 2024 starts.
Coming back to Mohawk at age 3, Stormont Beautiful won her April 11 qualifier, then finished second as 1-2 favorite in her May 1 season opener. Fifth on May 5 in a Standardbred Breeders of Ontario (SBOA) elimination for Ontario-sired 3-year-old filly trotters, Stormont Beautiful was scratched sick from the final.
Her next start was a June 5 conditioned race at Mohawk. Stormont Beautiful and driver James MacDonald stormed to a 1:53.3 win, at odds of 11-1. Leader Chicago Hall jumped it off down the stretch, allowing Stormont Beautiful to advance from fifth to first in the field’s fastest (:26.4) last quarter, holding off 1-2 favorite Lasting Dream.
Although sixth behind winner Monalishi June 20 in an OSS Gold leg 2, Stormont Beautiful reeled off a 1:54.3 off-the-pace victory for driver McClure in a July 3 conditioned event at Mohawk.
Benn called her July 16 performance in the OSS Gold leg 3 at Grand River Raceway “a tremendous mile.” Stormont Beautiful trailed by open lengths to the :56 half, making a three-wide bid around breaker Green Glider at three-quarters. “Stormont Beautiful is really making up a lot of ground,” racecaller Gary Guy said. “Look at Stormont Beautiful trot up a storm!”
Although unable to catch winner Sprite Seelster and place finisher Exquisite Taste, she closed in the fastest (:28) last quarter for show in a 1:54 mile that stands as Canada’s fastest 2025 mile by any 3-year-old trotter on a five-eighths-mile track.
It would take Stormont Beautiful five more races before her second sophomore victory, Sept. 12 at Mohawk, facing Elegantimage eligibles. In line to Tyler Borth, she sat second-last to the half as Lasting Dream made the front past the :27 opening quarter. Skimming pylons around the final turn as Zette Athena pressed the pace still set by Lasting Dream, Stormont Beautiful appeared caught behind a wall of horses. Angling four-wide late, she drew ahead of Global Heritage by a neck to upset at 52-1.
Stormont Beautiful drew trailing post 11 in the Grade 1 Elegantimage on Sept. 20 at Mohawk. She was seventh at the time of a controversial incident involving R Dutchess, Global Heritage and Lasting Dream, which saw R Dutchess placed last behind breaker Global Heritage, and Lasting Dream elevated from second to first.
Steadily gaining ground second-over behind first-up Zette Athena on the final turn, Stormont Beautiful and Borth went three-wide for the stretch drive.
“She always showed in the last eighth she could really trot,” Benn said. “Those were good horses she went by. She showed she belonged with them.”
Benn noted that Stormont Beautiful, third-placed-second (in a dead heat with Highlandstarburst) was never involved in the contested interference, but there could be wide-ranging repercussions from an appeal recently filedagainst the result.
On Sept. 30, Stormont Beautiful took a new lifetime mark in the OSS Gold leg 5. Moving three-wide into fifth at the top of the stretch, she closed down the center of the track to win by an expanding seven lengths in 1:52.2.
“That was her most impressive mile,” Benn said. “She sat on the pylons until the last turn, so she had a real kick coming home. Bob [McClure] gave her a real patient drive and then when he took her off the pylons, she exploded late. I think she got home in :26.2.”
Second as beaten 1-2 favorite in Saturday’s (Oct. 11) OSS Gold Super Final, Stormont Beautiful pursued Monalishi to the wire, closing in the fastest (:27) last quarter. Benn said he had nothing but respect for the winner: “Monalishi is an O’Brien winner. I’m friends with her trainer [Blake MacIntosh]. She’s been the best all along and she still could be the best.”
Stormont Beautiful advancing to the Breeders Crown final is a shared dream for Baker and Benn.
“He was the one who put it forward to me and said she’s made the money,” the trainer told HRU. “When I started training for him 35 years ago, that’s all he talked about: the Breeders Crown. Being up here in Mohawk, our filly is in the top 10, so I think she deserves it… If she makes it to the final, he will be there.”
Eric Baker was inducted into the South Stormont Sports Hall of Fame in 2016, as a standardbred builder. He began breeding and racing harness horses around the same time that the Breeders Crown launched, in 1984.
“We raced a 2-year-old pacing filly, Horizontal, by Always B Miki, two years ago,” Benn said. “That’s the one and only time I’ve raced in it. We sold her to Determination at the start of her 3-year-old year. I think she’s in the breeding shed now.”
Horizontal finished third to Sylvia Hanover in her 2022 Breeders Crown elimination and eighth to her in the final.
Benn will also have a 2-year-old pacing filly in the one divisional Breeders Crown elimination tonight (Oct. 17): Sangria Summer (p, 2, 1:53.1s; $45,635), whom he co-owns with Leo Fleming of Campbellville, ON, Dennis Chadwick, and Zachary Mills, both of Napanee, ON.
“It’s kind of nice to have one from my personal stable, so I’m pretty happy,” Benn said. “I’m getting older. I’m 61 years old, so I’ve been doing it a long time.”
McClure will drive Stormont Beautiful in her Breeders Crown elim.
“He’s pretty professional, positive and good with young horses,” said Benn, who counts the fast-closing filly among the best he’s developed. “Stormont Ventnor [7, 1:52.4m; $402,053] was one of my favorites; he was second in the [2018] Goodtimes. Stormont Tuscany [6, 1:53.3s; $854,055] won the [1998 3-year-old trotting colt] O’Brien Award years ago. She’s right up there as one of my favorites. Hopefully she continues to keep going.”
