Military Time named the favourite to win Prince of Wales Stakes

A horse named Military Time is the favourite to win the 91st Prince of Wales Stakes, the highest-paying horse race Fort Erie Race Track holds all year.

The Prince of Wales Stakes takes place Monday on the dirt oval at Fort Erie Race Track, where only three-year-old thoroughbreds born in Canada may compete. The eight horses will race one mile and three-sixteenths, about 1.9 kilometres.

The track guarantees $400,000 in prize money for the race and will add up to $100,000 more if the winning horse was born in Ontario.

Fort Erie Race Track assigned all eight horses their starting gates on Thursday afternoon. The track’s oddsmaker also ranked the eight horses by how likely each one is to win, a ranking the racing industry calls the morning line.

The oddsmaker ranked Military Time first at odds of 2-1, ahead of every other horse in the race.

Military Time earned that ranking by finishing second in the King’s Plate at Woodbine Racetrack in Toronto last month, behind a female horse named Luster.

Fort Erie Race Track picks the gates by random draw so that no horse is given an advantage. James Culic, the track’s marketing manager, hosted the draw on Thursday and read out each horse’s gate number as it came up.

“The names are up on the board, positions are set, we are all ready for the magnitude of the Prince of Wales Stakes,” Culic said.

Mark Casse trains Military Time, and jockey Fraser Aebly will ride him from gate No. 2, the second-closest starting position to the inside rail.

Culic said that Casse regards Military Time as a horse who settles behind the leaders early in a race then accelerates over the final stretch, and that the length of the Prince of Wales Stakes should work in his favour.

The Prince of Wales Stakes is the second of three races that make up the Canadian Triple Crown. A horse claims the Triple Crown by winning the King’s Plate at Woodbine in August, the Prince of Wales Stakes at Fort Erie in September and the Breeders’ Stakes at Woodbine later in the fall.

No horse will claim the Canadian Triple Crown in 2026, because Luster won the King’s Plate and Luster’s owners did not enter her in the Fort Erie race. A horse named Wando won all three races in 2003, and no horse has matched Wando since.

The oddsmaker ranked Highway To The Moon second at 3-1. Jockey Jose Campos will ride him from gate No. 8 on the far outside. Jockey Jalon Samuel will ride the third-ranked horse, Fire and Wine, at 5-1 from gate No. 6. Fire and Wine finished third in the King’s Plate, behind Luster and Military Time.

The oddsmaker rated the remaining five horses less likely to win.

Luis Contreras will ride Imyourmedicineman at 6-1 from gate No. 7. Ryan Munger will ride Brachetto at 8-1 from gate No. 3, and Pietro Moran will ride Keep My Powder Dry with the same odds from gate No. 4. Emma-Jayne Wilson will ride Buium at 12-1 from gate No. 1 against the inside rail, and Xarel Forde will ride Auntie’s Bambino at 20-1 from gate No. 5.

Harold Ladouceur, who trains Imyourmedicineman, was the first Indigenous trainer to win the Prince of Wales Stakes in 2024 with a horse named Vitality.

Fort Erie Race Track will hold eight more races on Labour Day, and the track says it will pay out close to $1 million in prize money over the full day.

The Lake Erie Stakes and the Rondeau Bay Stakes are worth $150,000 each, and the track will hold the Richard Grubb Cup for the first time.

The first race of the day starts at 12:25 p.m. and Fort Erie Race Track will broadcast the race on the track’s YouTube channel.

Fort Erie Race Track has held the Prince of Wales Stakes every year since 1959, and the race attracts more spectators and pays out more money than any other day of the track’s racing season.

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