It’ll be number one against number three when North
America’s leading dash winner, Ronnie Wrenn, Jr. locks horns with Bruce
Aldrich, Jr., third in wins on the continent, on Thursday December 12 at
Monticello Raceway.
The 26 year old Wrenn, from a top racing family in Michigan,
has blossomed into a world class driver and his 631 driving
victories leads all reinsmen. And Aldrich, 43, in his first year of just
driving, has already booked 566 winners and is enjoying the best
season of his career. Career wise Aldrich has driven 4671 winners while the
youthful Wrenn has already passed the 1000-win plateau and has 1242 wins
in just four seasons in the sulky.
Aldrich will have hometown advantage as Wrenn will be coming
in from Northfield Ohio. Both are leading drivers at their respective tracks,
Aldrich at Monticello Raceway and Wrenn at Northfield Park.
“This has the makings of an interesting competition, not
only for the drivers, but for the betting public,” Aldrich said.”There’s no
doubt that good drivers will be in competition but there are factors that may
be beyond our control especially in the eight horse fields. And I can tell you
Monticello has a good driving colony and we will not only be challenged
by them but we’ll have to keep an eye on one another.”
Last week when Wrenn was asked if
he’d drive the card against Aldrich he said, ” Yes but
I’d like to know how the drives are selected.”
“We have a tentative plan on how to make the
competition as fair as possible,” offered Eric Warner, the Mighty M’s director
of racing. ““In an effort to keep the scales from tipping one way or the other
we intend to have the drivers make alternate picks on the 13 race card.
“After the December 12th program is drawn
we’ll flip a coin and the one who calls it correctly will have first choice of
the horse he wants to drive in race one while the other get his selection after
that. Then Aldrich picks first in the next race and Wrenn second
and we’ll alternate throughout the entire card.
“Someone said to me that they’ll pick the favorites to which
I replied that here at Monticello just over 35 per cent of
favorites win. That leaves room for everybody.”
The December 12th race card will be drawn on
Monday, December 9.
