FORT ERIE, Ont. — Luis Contreras is two-thirds of the way to another personal Canadian Triple Crown.
Contreras guided 14-1 longshot Cool Catomine to victory in the $500,000 Prince of Wales Stakes on Tuesday night. The Mexican-born jockey won the $1-million Queen's Plate aboard filly Holy Helena earlier this month but had to find another mount for this event when Holy Helena's connections opted against running her at Fort Erie Racetrack.
In 2011, Contreras became the first jockey to win all three Canadian Triple Crown races aboard different horses. After claiming the Plate aboard Inglorious, Contreras rode Pender Harbour to victory in both the Prince of Wales and the $500,000 Breeders' Stakes at Toronto's Woodbine Racetrack.
"I always think about it, for sure," Contreras said. "There's still one more step to go.
"If they (Cool Catomine's connections) want to try . . . let's see what happens."
Contreras has been on quite a roll, having registered eight wins over 21 starts since Friday, including two graded events. He claimed his second straight Prince of Wales title — winning last year with Amis Gizmo — and third overall.
"It's unbelievable," Contreras said. "I just love riding.
"I come every day to ride as confident as I can."
Trainer John Ross, who also owns a share of Cool Catomine, is taking a wait-and-see approach regarding the horse running in the Breeders' Stakes, a 1 1/2-mile turf event Aug. 20 at Toronto's Woodbine Racetrack.
"We might consider it," he said. "We're going to see how he comes out of it, naturally, and we'll go from there."
Ross and co-owner Jack of Hearts Racing paid a $12,500 supplemental fee to enter Cool Catomine into the race. After not running as a two-year-old, the son of Spring of Last was coming off a win in his last start and also registered a third-place finish over his four previous races this season.
Tuesday night's win was worth a cool $300,000 for Cool Catomine's handlers.
"When you have a horse that's improving and on the upswing, sometimes you've got to have enough courage inside of you to do those things," Ross said. "We had to put up over $12,000 in this race just to go into it but because he was doing so well, looking so good, working so good we felt we were going to give it a chance."
In fact, Ross credited Contreras with Cool Catomine's improvement, adding it was the jockey's suggestion the horse don blinkers for the first time in his last start.
"I love this horse the way he trains," Ross said. "But when he came seventh in his first race, I said to Luis, 'You know, maybe he's not the horse I think he is.'
"Luis said, 'No boss, you put blinkers on this horse, this horse is good.' As soon as we put them on, we found the real deal with this horse."
Contreras kept Cool Catomine behind front-runner State of Honor for most of the race before grabbing the lead in deep stretch and crossing the finish line in 1:55.63 over 1 3/16 miles on a fast dirt course.
Aurora Way finished second ahead of State of Honor, the co 2-1 second favourite with Tiz a Slam. The other finishers, in order, were: Woodbridge; Tiz a Slam; Spirit of Caledon; and Jurojin.
Aurora Way's second-place finish came in just his third career start and jockey Rafael Hernandez said he didn't have the easiest of trips.
"Turning for home he was looking everywhere," he said. "When I asked him, it was hard to get anything going.
"He's going to run very good in the next couple starts. He's a very good horse."
Cool Catomine paid $30.80, $9.60 and $4.30 while Aurora Way returned $4 and $2.60. State of Honor paid $2.70.
With Holy Helena not running Tuesday, Wando (2003) remains the last official Canadian Triple Crown winner.
Contreras said while he had a "perfect trip,'' Cool Catomine made him work for the win.
"This horse, if you stop riding, he stops running so the whole way I'm keeping this horse alive," Contreras said. "I had to work the whole way.
"At the end I was just hoping to get to the wire first . . . I just kept riding this horse."
State of Honor was highly regarded for good reason, having the most dirt experience in the field — three seconds and a third over four career races. Spirit of Caledon was the only other horse to have run on dirt, finishing a distant eighth.
But that wasn't a concern for Contreras.
"We've been breezing on the dirt and he seems fine," he said. "As long as you ride him the whole way, he'll go as far as you want to go."
Dan Ralph, The Canadian Press
