CP NewsAlert: Breaking Lucky wins Prince of Wales Stakes

The years working at Fort Erie launched a career that saw Baker graduate from groom to exercise rider and pony person, jockey agent and racing manager before he took out his trainer’s licence at Woodbine in 1989. Cut to the Chase, Luis Contreras, 15-1. Shaman Ghost was the 3/4 favorite.

Breaking Lucky won the 1 3/16-mile race in 1:56.59 on a fast track.

“By the time we hit the finish line, I knew I won”, McAleney said. I knew Shaman Ghost was down in there looking for room and I knew once he got through that he’d come running. “I had a clear outside trip coming down the lane so I opted for the outside”.

“(The stretch) was really long. “If I had time I would’ve been praying but I didn’t have time”.

The win was the second in six career starts for Breaking Lucky, with the $300,000 winner’s share boosting his overall earnings to $362,700.

“Our horse will have a target on his back for sure”.

“He’s a very level-headed horse, he takes everything in stride”, Lynch said. “I got to talk to all the reporters from the small newspapers in that area”.

Baker praised McAleney and felt he had the best horse.

“He was very rideable today and I appreciate the effort Reade had put into giving him experience on the dirt”. We got in trouble on the backside.

It was Baker, however, who told the colt’s owner, Tom Keithley, whose business Bill Me Later was a platform for the successful PayPal web-based payment option, that Breaking Lucky had the potential to be a good one following his first career win, which came in a Woodbine sprint.

“It’s huge”, he said. “To do it with someone, for somebody who has supported me to the length that Reade has done, enough can’t be said”.

“My family was there with me, it was like being home”, said Baker, 68. “It was a long wait but we finally got it”.

The final jewel is the $500,000 Breeders’ Stakes, a 1 1/2-mile turf event slated for Woodbine Racetrack on August 16.

So close for Shaman Ghost. In 2010 his father Lookin at Lucky won the Preakness, the second leg of the American Triple Crown, both races are run at 1 3/16-miles on dirt. Shaman Ghost, Hernandez, 7-5; 5. “He handled the surface fine and he tried hard. It looked like we were done down the lane, but he came back again and nearly got there”.

And it was at the Port Dalhousie spot that Baker and Maine began a tradition of hosting a party the night before the Prince of Wales for their many media friends.

“My trip was great”. Field of Courage, Eurico Rosa da Silva, 8-1; 4.

“He shortens up a little bit but tactically he’s a horse Rafael knows well”, Lynch said. “Still, the victor really was great and deserved to win”.

As for the rest of the field, the day was not so good.

Among the disappointments were Conquest Boogaloo and Danish Dynaformer. Danish Dynaformer, Patrick Husbands, 9-5; 6. But in the end, he was many steps below the rest of the field when it mattered.

Fifty years later and a champion trainer at Woodbine, Baker can’t be faulted for getting a little choked up after winning the biggest race of his career at his old stomping grounds when his equine student Breaking Lucky upset Tuesday’s Prince of Wales Stakes.

He used some of his veteran jockey experience in holding off the son of Ghostzapper, after passing third-place finisher Field of Courage in the stretch.

“I’m not surprised she broke the track record”.