Trainer Mark Casse says Oaks winner No Time will run in $1-million King’s Plate

TORONTO — No Time is a go for the $1-million King’s Plate.

Trainer Mark Casse said the filly came out of her win in the $500,000 Woodbine Oaks on July 20 well. Her next race will be the Plate, which goes Aug. 16 at Woodbine.

“Oh yeah, for sure,” Casse said when asked if No Time would run in the Plate. “She’s doing great.”

Casse, a Hall of Fame trainer in both Canada and the U.S., will have two horses in the opening jewel of the OLG Canadian Triple Crown. The other will be Ashley’s Archer, a three-year-old colt.

No Time, with John Velazquez aboard, earned Casse a record-tying fifth Oaks victory, covering the 1 1/8-mile race on Woodbine’s Tapeta course in one minute 50.14 seconds. Earlier, Sedburys Ghost captured the $150,000 Plate Trial, also over 1 1/8 miles on Tapeta, in 1:50.37.

No Time secured her third win in eight career starts. She earned the victory coming off a fourth-place effort in the Grade 3 $150,000 Selene Stakes at Woodbine on June 28.

“She had a terrible trip (in Selene),” Casse said. “I really thought she should’ve won that so I wasn’t shocked by her performance in the Oaks.”

Casse, Canada’s top trainer an unprecedented 16 times, has won the King’s Plate three times, twice with fillies that ran previously in the Oaks.

In 2014, Lexie Lou completed the Oaks-Plate double, earning Casse his first Plate title. Four years later, Wonder Gadot crossed the finish line first following a second-place finish in the Oaks.

Casse’s last Plate victory came in 2023 with Paramount Prince, which finished ahead of Oaks winner Elysian Field, another Casse trainee.

And last year, filly Caitlinhergrtness secured trainer Kevin Attard a second Plate victory after finishing second in the Oaks.

The Plate, while also run on Tapeta, covers 1 1/4 miles.

Since 2014, five fillies have won the Plate — four when it was the Queen’s Plate — and Caitlinhergrtness became the first to claim the King’s Plate since it was renamed in 2023 upon the accession of Charles III.

One reason for that could be the three weeks between the Oaks and Plate, which gives fillies sufficient time to recover. And with the Oaks and Plate Trial featuring the same distance and race surface and going on the same card, it allows for better comparisons between the two fields.

“It’s not just for (fans), it’s trainers like myself,” Casse said. “There’s something to compare it with and it’s a true comparison.”

Casse is also a big supporter of Woodbine’s decision to move the Plate from its traditional date in June. The Plate was originally rescheduled to September in 2020, then pushed back to August the following year (due to the global pandemic) and has remained there since.

“I like the timing,” Casse said. “I think before, the Plate was way too early and if the Plate was early, the Oaks was even earlier.

“I think we were putting too much pressure on the horses. Now it gives them time to develop and they end up running longer and better later on and I think that’s helped. It was all for the good, it’s better, especially for Canadian horsemen.”

Casse said it’s tough to compare No Time to his previous to Plate-winning fillies. No Time has three wins and a third-place effort from eight lifetime starts.

“I think she’s much later developing than Lexie Lou and Wonder Gadot,” Casse said. “They’d accomplished a lot more before the King’s Plate but I thought No Time’s performance in the Oaks was equally as good as any of them.”

And as a late bloomer, maybe the best is yet to come for No Time, who’ll again be ridden by Velazquez in the Plate?

“You’d sure think so,” he said. “Of all the Plate horses I’ve had over the years, she has the best pedigree.

“She’s a half to two Grade 1 winners (Count Again, Ransom the Moon), she’s by one of the best sires in the world (Not This Time) and they’re known to develop and get better as they get older.”

Ashley’s Archer has two second-place finishes from three races this season. Overall, the horse has a win, two seconds and a third in seven lifetime starts while battling foot issues.

“We’ve had a lot of bumps in the road with him,” Casse said. “He just has very fragile feet.

“Right now he’s in a good place and if he can stay happy and we can keep his feet healthy, he’s going to be a force to be reckoned with. He ran a really good race (second at Woodbine on July 13) and that was him at about 85 per cent.”

Woodbine’s Sahin Civaci will ride Ashley’s Archer in the Plate.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 29, 2025.