Odds On Racing - Harness Racing

Brent MacGrath bought this colt for $40 000 as a yearling for the Schooner Stables group of Nova Scotia--a group of six business people. He won nine starts at 2, including three qualifiers, and didn't step foot outside of Canada. This year, however, he is the early favorite to win the Little Brown Jug in September at Delaware, Ohio. Soomebeachsomewhere was named for Blake Shelton’s hit country song.

His first race came at the Grand River Raceway, in the Battle of Waterloo, which he won easily. Here he stunned the crowds with a world record mile of 1:49.3 in the Metro Pace, at Mohawk.

He won the Champlain Stakes and the Nasagaweya Stakes without effort, and ended his 2-year-old campaign with six pari-mutuel wins in many starts with career earnings of $812 592. He shared the title of Canadian Horse of the Year with Tell All, and was named the best pacing colt of 2007 by the US Harness Writers. Somebeachsomewhere has already been labeled the favorite to win the $1.5 Million Pepsi North America Cup at the Mohawk Racetrack on June 14, 2008.

Although handsome offers have been made to buy shares in Somebeachsomewhere, the Schooner Stables Group has turned them down. Each of the group members are established businessmen and women, who own, support and take care of Somebeachsomewhere out of their love for him and the sport.

Driver, Paul MacDonell, has only praise for Somebeachsomewhere, commenting that his power and speed are breathtaking and that he already shows the experienced characteristics one would expect from an older horse.

TrainerMacGrath appears to be handling all the buzz about his celebrity colt.

"I don’t mind it. I’m a talker anyway," he said. "It’s very gratifying for me. I’ve been buying babies all my life and I’ve had a couple of decent ones, I’ve had lots of bad ones, and when one like him comes along, this is where you want to be. It’s pretty hard to complain about it! It’s been a long time getting here. I’m happy that the country has the interest in the horse. He deserves it and he’s worthy of it.

"The Maritimers, or the small horseperson anywhere, since he’s come along I think they feel like they have a shot at getting a hold of a horse like this. You know, I put together a group of people together with $40,000, which is not a lot of money between six people, and we struck gold with this colt. I didn’t do anything special. The biggest thing I did was pick the horse out.

"I think there are lots of small time horsemen all over Canada, and the US for that matter, who could have bought this horse and trained him and had the kind of horse that I have.

"He’s certainly (turning people on to harness racing) on the east coast … they’re coming out, maybe two to three times as many fans (as usual), and I think he’s getting the same kind of following here. If he does the same thing he did last year I think he’s going to give the industry a boost … and he should, you know.

"He’s a true professional. He hasn’t had a bad day, and hasn’t done one thing wrong since the day I bought him. It’s good for the game and hopefully it’ll give the industry a little shot in the arm."