BY
FRANK DRUCKER, Publicity Director, Empire City @ Yonkers Raceway
YONKERS, NY, Wednesday, April 13, 2016—The
marathon is about over, but instead of 26.2 miles in “x” number of hours, its
five miles in five consecutive weeks…
…and nary a Kenyan in sight.
This weekend, Yonkers Raceway offers the
fifth and final preliminary rounds in both the Blue Chip Matchmaker (Friday
night) and George Morton Levy Memorial Pacing Series (Saturday night).
The lasses in the Matchmaker go in
consecutive (races 6 and 7), $40,000 divisions. Though series points-leader Al
Raza N has the week off, just about all the other leading ladies are in-to-go.
Sell a Bit N (Jordan Stratton, post 4) and Yagonnakissmeornot (Dan Dube, post 2)—each
with a pair of leg wins—drew into the first and second groupings, respectively,
while Krispy Apple (Jason Bartlett, post 2) and Carolsideal (Dube, post 3)
found their way into the opening scrum.
“Yagonnakissme,” Krispy Apple and
Carolsideal won last Friday’s fourth-round events.
The Levy has been whittled down to a
series-low three $50,000 groupings (races 5 through 7), with the last of ‘em
getting the deserved attention. A perfect Bit of a Legend N (Stratton, post 4),
4-for-4 in his series soirees, hooks reining Horse of the Year Wiggle It
Jiggleit (Montrell Teague, post 7) for the first time.
Not that a 25-large winner’s share is
chump change, but neither actually needs to win this race. “Legend” is already
in the final (both series conclude Saturday night, Apr. 23), and WIJI cannot
qualify due to his late (third leg) Levy debut.
Bit of a Legend N enters of a pair of
1:51.2 wins in succession, while Wiggle It Jiggleit authored a 1:51.1 public
workout in winning his event last weekend.
The opening division is led by P H
Supercam (Bartlett, post 1), Lettucerockthem A (Brian Sears, post 2) and All
Bets Off (Matt Kakaley, post 3). Series “doublers” Mach it So (Tim Tetrick,
post 2) and Lucan Hanover (Brett Miller, post 7) highlight the second event,
which also includes one Foiled Again (Yannick Gingras, post 1).
The sport’s richest-ever horse ($7.3
million) had last week off after two fourths (one in a dead-heat) and a second
in three series starts.
Matchmaker and Levy standings accompany
this release. Be advised that the standings do not necessarily indicate
qualifiers for finals and/or consolations. Those shall be determined by the
race office, as per conditions of the series.
