October 03, 2008
Watch and Wager Stakes Races at Fort Erie and Longshot OTB's

TORONTO, October 3...The richest card in Woodbine's thoroughbred history (excluding the 1996 Breeders' Cup) is set for Saturday, October 4, highlighted by the $2 million, Grade 1 Pattison Canadian International.

Not only will the Pattison, which drew a field of 10 turf specialists, be contested, so will three other turf stakes - the $1 million E.P. Taylor for fillies and mares, the $500,000 Nearctic for sprinters, and the $300,000 Summer for two-year-olds.   All four events are Breeders' Cup 'Win and You're In' races, meaning the winners also earn berths into their respective Breeders' Cup races, slated for October 24 and 25 at Santa Anita in California.
 
The 71st edition of the mile and one-half Pattison, Canada's richest horse race, over the E.P. Taylor Turf Course, is slated for 5:48 pm ET. ESPN will provide special two-hour live coverage of the four-race extravaganza, with The Score carrying the presentation across Canada from 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm ET.     

Heading the Pattison is the world-travelling French-bred Doctor Dino (PP3, 2-1), the field's leading money winner with over $2.7 million and the 2-1 morning line favourite.  To be ridden for the first time by Frankie Dettori, who has won two previous Internationals aboard Mutafaweq (2000) and Sulamani (2004), Doctor Dino counts the Group 1 Hong Kong Vase last December in Sha Tin and the Grade 1 Man O' War at Belmont Park in September of 2007 as his two biggest triumphs, in a 27-race career which has seen the six-year-old son of Muhtathir visit the winner's circle on eight occasions.

Trained by Richard Gibson for Spanish owner Javier Martinez Salmean, Doctor Dino enters the Pattison off a second-place finish to Getaway in the Group 2 Grand Prix de Deauville on August 31.  

Only two French-breds have won the International, the last being champion All Along in 1983.

The Grade 1, $1 million E.P. Taylor Stakes, for fillies and mares at one and one-quarter miles on the turf, will go postward at 5:16 pm.  It has drawn a well-matched field of nine, including the 5-2 morning line favourite J'ray (PP2, Joe Bravo), winner of the Grade 2 Canadian on September 7 at Woodbine, Gary Tanaka's Toque de Queda (PP5, Garrett Gomez, 7-2), Godolphin's Irish-bred Group 2 winner Folk Opera (PP4, Frankie Dettori, 4-1) and Canada's 2007 Horse of the Year Sealy Hill (PP1, Patrick Husbands, 8-1), who was runner-up to Mrs. Lindsay in last year's E.P. Taylor.

 The Grade 2, six furlong $500,000 Nearctic Stakes, at 4:35 pm, drew a field of 12, headed by defending champion Heros Reward (PP8, Javier Castellano), the 5-2 morning line choice, followed by recent Woodbine Mile third-place finisher, Just Rushing (PP1, Emma-Jayne Wilson), at 4-1.

The one mile, Grade 3 $300,000 Summer Stakes for two-year-olds, slated for 4:04 pm, has eight entrants, with Jim Dandy Stable's Utterly Cool (PP7, Richard Dos Ramos) established as the 7-5  morning line favourite, while stakes-placed Skipadate (PP1, Patrick Husbands), co-owned and trained by Mark Casse, is next at 5-2.

Daryl Wells
Media and Communications
1-800-295-3770 ext. 3204
e-mail: dwells@forterieracetrack.ca