Sticking to her guns

The big guns won three of the four $50,000 stakes races at Assiniboia Downs this week, but a young trainer named Tena Birdwell shipped in from Canterbury and shook up the Manitoba Derby rankings with an impressive victory in the Golden Boy Stakes.

Birdwell saddled Elston Gunnn for the Golden Boy, and he didn’t get much respect from the punters, who sent him off at odds of 19-1. Owned by Joseph Schumer, the three-year-old gelding by Hollywood Derby (G1) winner Mo Town looked like a turf horse on paper, coming in off second- and third-place finishes going a mile on the turf at Canterbury.

He was also facing the leading Manitoba Derby candidates, including the locally undefeated Prime Suspect and recent Corporate Shuffle Overnight Stakes-winner Truly Unbelievable, conditioned by star trainers Steve Keplin, Jr., and Robertino Diodoro.

Birdwell, who turned 31 the day before she spoke to the Free Press, has been training only since 2019. A horsewoman from the start, she came up through barrel racing, 4-H and three-day eventing before horse racing took over her life. “Right out of high school I went to the racetrack and started galloping,” she said. “Kind of took off from there.” Elston Gunnn was the first stakes winner of her career.

Elston Gunnn was housed in the barn of trainer Eugene Burns, who has shipped horses back and forth with Birdwell this year. They spent the winter together at Tampa Bay and train mostly for the same owner. Pointing a turf horse north was Burns’ idea. “I could never get a grass race to go for him,” Birdwell said. “Eugene’s like, you know what, turf horses do kind of like it here.”

Then the rain came. “The track was so muddy,” said Birdwell. “But they say grass horses like the mud. We just told the rider, keep him clean, don’t let him have dirt in the face, and that was it.”

The mud didn’t matter.

Elston Gunnn called on the hidden class in his form, a nose defeat going six furlongs in a $75,000 allowance race at Tampa Bay in January, and a $110,000 Maiden Special Weight victory sprinting on the Keeneland turf in his second lifetime start, and it showed up, with a smashing dab of heart thrown in at the end for good measure.

Dueling three-wide outside Alberta speedster Relaxgodoitramone and Truly Unbelievable, Elston Gunnn shook Relaxgodoitramone in early turn and dug in to put away a game Truly Unbelievable in mid-stretch, after which he was challenged by Prime Suspect, who had received a perfect trip under jockey Sven Balroop stalking the duel.

Prime Suspect is a good horse, but try as he might, he couldn’t get to Elston Gunnn. At the wire it was Elston Gunnn and jockey Shavon Townsend by half a length over Prime Suspect, with Truly Unbelievable a further four lengths back in third.

“He’s a nice horse, very versatile,” Burns said. “He doesn’t need the lead, but he can run on the lead. He’s legit.” The Phoenix-based Schumer, who campaigns horses in Arizona, Iowa, Florida and now Manitoba, had won five races at three tracks the week before the Golden Boy, and has found the Downs to be another place where his horses can be competitive.

Elston Gunnn gave Birdwell her first-ever stakes winner as a trainer and paid $39.70, $8.00 and $5.50 across the board. And just like that, we had a new local favourite for the $125,000 Manitoba Derby on Monday, August 3. He also set up a lucrative $3 Pick 3 with Winnipeg Free Press Stakes winner Bergheim in the fifth race on Tuesday. Neither horse got any respect on the tote board, with Bergheim going off at 14-1, yet both were convincing winners.

Bergheim is trained by runaway leading trainer Jerry Gourneau for Canada’s top owner right now for 2026 by number of wins (58), Henry S. Witt, Jr., and had won the $50,000 Beau Blade Stakes at the Downs in his previous race. He wasn’t the only other longshot in the stakes.

On Wednesday night, Alberta-based trainer Tim Rycroft and jockey Jose Asencio won the Chantilly Stakes with Century Mile shipper What Force at 10-1. The only stakes won by a favourite was the La Verendrye on Wednesday, which went to another Alberta shipper, Dontgiveupthefight, trained by Robertino Diodoro and ridden by Kimal Santo. The four-year-old filly went off at 2-1 and ran to her odds, wearing down fellow Alberta shipper Bling Dancer for the lion’s share of the purse.

The longshot of the week was Haggis in the sixth race on Monday, trained by Brent Hyrmak and ridden by Dario Dalrymple, who said after the race, “I ride them all to win, that’s why they win.” Haggis was sent off at 46-1 and played a big part in a whopping $1 Pick 4 that paid $31,933.10, to go with numerous huge $3 Pick 3 payouts that continued for three glorious days in the mud.

Birdwell doesn’t bet her own horses. “I think it jinxes them,” she said. But her owner had no such reservations. Schumer backed Elston Gunnn at 19-1 and cashed. “I think he made $1,800 or something,” Birdwell said, laughing.

“He likes to play.”

winnipegfreepress.mb.ca/georgewilliams