Odds On Racing - Harness Racing

Balanced Image

Bay stallion, foaled May 30, 1978 at Castleton Farm in Lexington, Kentucky.
By Noble Gesture--Well Molded.
Purchased for $32,000 by Lauxmount Stables.

Balanced Image began his career at two under the eye of trainer-driver Glen Garnsey. With an aggressive attitude at two and several soundess issues, he won only two starts his freshman seasons. Given time to mature over the winter proved fruitfull for the young trotter, who rebounded at age three to set a lifetime mark of 1:58.4 at Latonia Raceway in Kentucky. He finished second in the Founders Gold Cup and third in the Yonkers Trot, but he sophmore campaign quickly came to an end when he fractured sesamoid bone in the Beacon Course Trot, wrapping up the year with $62,639 in earnings from five victories.

1982 would prove to be a successful season for Balanced Image, now four. He would win four races and $106,350, including the American National Aged Trot at Bamoral, but another fracture forced the fractious trotter into retirement and onto the breeding shed at Cantario Farms in Ontario, Canada (now known as Glengtae Farm).

Balanced Image has since sired the winners of more than $82 million (as of December 2004) and ranks as the sports second leading money-winning trotting sire of all time, behind Speedy Crown. He has also been a successful broodmare sire, as his daughters have produced the winners of over $33 million. He has sired six million dollar winners, including Goodtimes and Glory's Comet, who both earned more than $2 milion. He is also the sire of these standouts: Yankee Paco, Amigo Hall, Banker Hall, Earl, Liberty Balance, Trade Balance, Rotation, Natural Image, Billyjojimbob, Impeccable Image, Elegantimage, Armbro Plato and Armbro Marshall, to name just a few.

He was inducted into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame in 2000 and was the first Ontario-based stallion to have sired a Hambletonian winner in Yankee Paco. Balanced Image was buried next to his paddock at Glengate Farms in Canada, after he was humanly euthanized on Thursday, October 14, 2004. The 26-year-old stallion had been retired in 2003 due to diabetes.