ROAD TO THE MILLION TARGETED BY WAVE OF JO

By Dale Day
Remington Park announcer


The World’s Fastest Athletes continue to impress on a nightly basis at Remington Park as we continue to feature some of the top 2-year-old racing in the country. With our season positioned early in the calendar year, we have the opportunity to witness the majority of the best 2-year-olds in America get their first start, either in maiden races or futurity trials.

Sunday night, the most impressive 2-year-old from the first 22 race dates made her pari-mutuel debut in the fourth race, a $16,600 maiden event at 330 yards.

Wave Of Jo had already produced a very quick bullet workout at 250 yards in late February, followed by a sharp training race win in late March. In her first real action on Sunday, she showed why she deserves to be on ‘The Road to the Million,’ the $1,000,000 Heritage Place Futurity on May 29.

Away from the starting gate on the outside of a field of 10, Wave Of Jo had an even start, not great… not bad. Under multiple champion jockey G.R. Carter, she quickly found her run, making up ground and taking the lead in the race by the halfway point. Using strong, ground-consuming strides, Wave Of Jo shot past all of her rivals with ease while running into a head-wind of 10-15 miles per hour that did not faze her.

Carter realized the event was over with about 100 yards remaining and wrapped up on Wave Of Jo, making sure she would have plenty left in the tank for future starts.

Trained by Heath Taylor, if Wave Of Jo comes out of her dominating 2-1/4 length victory in good shape, we can expect to see her next start in one of the two trial nights for the Heritage Place Futurity, either May 7 or 8. If she is one of the five fastest on her night of qualifying, she will graduate to the May 29 final.

Fine breeding doesn’t always pan out when a young horse gets to the racetrack but Wave Of Jo has that on her side as well. Her sire Wave Carver was the 2006 American Quarter Horse Association World Champion while her dam is past divisional champ and multiple Remington Park stakes winner Joanna Kate.

All systems seem to be ‘go’ for the newest charge for the Guymon, Okla. partnership of Jo Ann Adams and Duane Harrel. If she’s as good in a couple more races as she was on Sunday night, and it appears that she is the real deal, an early spring night at Remington Park may have been the debut stage of one who will race in the sport’s biggest event on Labor Day…but let’s see if she can navigate the ‘Road to the Million’ first.