Lawson hoping to hit a home run with Barger while Charalambous hoping Road to Glory is simply glorious in Sunday's Cup & Saucer Stakes

By Steve Buffery

The Toronto Blue Jays punched above their weight during the 2025 Major League Baseball season and horse owner Jim Lawson is hoping that his two-year-old colt Barger -named after Jays outfielder Addison Barger - punches above his weight in Sunday’s $300,000 Cup & Saucer Stakes at Woodbine.

Barger, a home-bred by Lawson’s Jim Dandy Stable, won in his first-ever start on Aug.9 – a $40,000 maiden optional claiming race with a purse of $71, 700 – in impressive fashion, defeating a field of six runners in a hand ride by jockey Daisuke Fukumoto.

“It’s always exciting to win with a home-bred,” said Lawson, the Executive Chair of Woodbine Entertainment. “You’re always a little nervous naming a horse after someone (famous) and you just hope the horse runs well. He won quite easily (on Aug. 9), but he may be out of his depth here (in the Cup & Saucer) a little bit, but there’s so many two-year-old stakes races right around now that the non-winners-of-two allowance races haven’t filled. So, we haven’t had anywhere to run him so we’re going to give this Cup and Saucer a try. He might be out of his depth, but you never know. He could surprise. We’ll see. He’s not bred for distance, he’s a Jimmy Creed colt. He’s bred for seven furlongs or a mile. But you never know. It’s a tall order, but there’s no question he has some talent. It’s going to be fun to give it a try.”

Another trainer who is hoping that his horse punches above his weight in Sunday’s Cup & Saucer is John Charalambous, who has entered Road to Glory, a dark bay/brown gelding who was sired by Bolt d’Oro out of the Pulpit mare Holy Flame and owned by Paul Braverman and Timothy Pinch. Last month, Braverman and Pinch sold the Charalambous-trained Scorching to the American-based stable C2 Racing only a couple of days after Scorching won the Elgin Stakes at Woodbine, leaving Charalambous with only three horses left in his barn, including Road to Glory. Scorching won the 2024 Cup & Saucer (moved up to first after placing second behind Ashley’s Archer by a nose) and Charalambous is hoping for another score in the race on Sunday despite the fact that, like Barger, Road to Glory is not one of the early favorites. Road to Glory posted a very nice winning performance in a maiden special weight race on Aug.1 at Woodbine, but then answered that with a disappointing ninth-place finish in the Simcoe Stakes on Aug.30.

“The only thing I don’t like is, we’re coming off a poor effort in the Yearling Sales Stakes (Aug.30) and he had a reason for not coming through with a top performance, but I don’t know if it was a reason for having that poor of a performance. But I hope he takes to the grass because, if he does, he has a shot. He’s never seen the grass, never trained on it. The only thing he’s done is grazed on it,” Charalambous said with a laugh. “We’re looking for a positive race.”

“He’s a nice horse to be around. He’s just a little guy, like the 98-pounder in the wrestling class,” added Charalambous, a former high school wrestler in his native Scarborough.

The Cup & Saucer Stakes is open to two-year-old horses foaled in Canada, run at a distance of 1+¹⁄₁₆ miles on turf. Along with its dirt race counterpart, the Coronation Futurity Stakes, the Cup & Saucer is the richest race for two-year-olds foaled in Canada. This Saturday at Woodbine marks Fall Turf Showcase featuring four graded stakes races on turf including the 86^th running of the Grade 1 Canadian International, as well as the Grade 2 Nearctic Stakes, Grade 2 bet365 Dance Smartly Stakes and Grade 3 bet365 Algonquin Stakes. A huge weekend of racing at the Rexdale oval.

Lawson said Barger’s speed wasn’t overwhelming in his win on Aug. 9 but he pointed out that his colt didn’t have to tax himself too much in the race.

“He got into a bit of traffic trouble at the top of the stretch and then he just kind of moved ahead of everyone at ease and the jockey never showed him the whip that day,” said Lawson.

A long-time Blue Jays season ticket holder, Lawson was inspired to name his homebred Barger after the baseball-playing Barger famously nailed L.A. infielder Freddie Freeman at home plate during Game 3 of the 2025 World Series when Freeman tried to score from second base. Barger fielded the ball about 250 feet away and threw the ball at 98.5 MPH to catch Freeman easily at home, preventing the Dodgers from scoring. Like his human counterpart, Barger the colt is a very robust individual.

“And the thing about the name ‘Barger’, it felt like a good name for a colt – like barging through a door, barging in,” said Lawson. “But the colt himself is kind of a big, stocky (colt) with a big back-end on him, big hind quarters on him. He’s not that big or tall but he’s very well built in the back-end.”

Blue Jays-themed names for thoroughbred horses is certainly nothing new around Woodbine. Veteran trainer John LeBlanc Jr., for instance, has conditioned a number of horses with baseball-themed monikers including Hello Friends (the opening greeting of retired Jays broadcasting great Jerry Howarth),  Next Pitch and Wardo, named after the recently deceased ex-Jays pitcher Duane Ward.

Barger is trained by Hall of Fame conditioner Sid Attard who is having another fantastic year at Woodbine with 30 victories in 104 starts this year with a In-The-Money Percentage of 58% (heading into Thursday’s races at Woodbine). Attard has been visiting family in his native Malta for a few days but Lawson isn’t worried about his absence this week.

“Sid’s got capable people around him. Larry Attard’s a Hall of Fame jockey and he’s Sid’s assistant,” said Lawson. Larry Attard, Sid’s brother, has two big scores in three starts of his own this season at Woodbine with his Kentucky-bred, six-year-old gelding Exude.

Barger - Jimmy Creed-Katie O by Yes It’s True – both Jimmy Creed and Yes It’s True were Grade 1 stakes winners - likely won’t be the favorite heading into the Cup & Saucer. Lawson said if his colt can’t pull off the victory on Sunday, then he’s hoping a certain Mark Casse-trained bay colt might come through.

“One of the favorites in the (Cup & Saucer) will be a horse named Ghostface who we also bred and sold,” said Lawson. “And the third horse that we bred that year is a really nice two-year-old filly that Todd Pletcher’s had this summer named Impress. She hasn’t run yet. So, of the three horses we bred, two are in the Cup & Saucer and one’s with Todd Pletcher and he, we understand, is quite pleased with her.”

Lawson sold Ghostface at the yearling sale and got flipped twice before being bought by horse racing heavyweights Gary Barber, DJ Stable LLC and St. Elias Stable.

There are 10 entries in the Cup & Saucer and they are, according to the post position, King’s Counsel (trainer Barb Minshall, jockey Daisuke Fukumoto); Barger (Sid Attard, Jose Luis Campos); Mo Cookie (Michael De Paulo, Rico Walcott); Bunyan (Kevin Attard, Fraser Aebly); Canada (Mark Casse, Emma-Jayne Wilson); Sunny’s Rainbow (Michael De Paulo, Luis Contreras); Whatta Move (Josie Carroll, Pietro Moran); Glorious Gem (Dale Desruisseaux, Rafael Hernandez); Road to Glory (John Charalambous, Ryan Munger); Ghostface (Mark Casse, Sahin Civaci).