East Rutherford, NJ – The Meadowlands features a quartet of $100,000 New
Jersey Sires Stakes (NJSS) freshman finals among fourteen live races on Friday,
July 15.
The pacing colts come up
first in race two and the road to the title goes through Every Way Out. An easy
winner in both preliminary legs including a sharp 1:55 effort in his last,
Every Way Out faces just five rivals for new connections this
week. Previous owner Aaron Lambert sold the colt between starts to the
partnership of Howard Taylor, Abe Basen, Ed Gold and Tom Lazzaro and Dylan
Davis takes over the conditioning. Tim Tetrick is the one constant, back
in the bike from post six in the final.
The fourth race is composed
of ten colt trotting prodigies seeking the state crown. Of the
three prelim winners, both Hammer Time and Fly On paired a win
with a third place finish for their dual efforts while New Jersey Viking had
the week off after his leg one success.
Trainer/driver Ake Svanstedt
had New Jersey Viking ready to win in the first leg off a single qualifier.
After letting the dust settle around the first turn, Svanstedt moved his
charge to the front on the backstretch and the colt responded with a 27.2
end to a 1:55.4 mile. With his final berth secure, the son of Muscle Hill from Hall Of Wishes was
held out of leg two.
New Jersey Viking has drawn
post three on Friday. He carries the hopes of Meadowlands Chairman Jeff Gural
via his nom de course Little E, LLC and his partners Knutsson Racing, familiar
as the owners of the great Sebastian K.
The trotting fillies are a
dynamic group of ten that will settle the issue of who’s the fairest of them
all, Garden State style, in the sixth race.
Checkmate Time is a slight
favorite over Ariana G, based on her pair of leg wins over the latter’s single
successful appearance in the stakes.
Checkmate Time has been
impressive right from the start and showed some grit last week battling her way
past a stubborn Waffle Cone to get the 1:55 win. She seems to do her best work
following and Scott Zeron has been assigned to sort out a winning trip by
trainer Dennis Laterza for owner/breeder Roy Dobbins.
Ariana G is also a homebred,
racing for the interests of Marvin Katz and Al Libfeld. By Muscle Hill from
Cantab It All, she’s a sister and barn mate in the Jimmy Takter stable to
Hambletonian Oaks contender All The Time who won this race last year. Ariana G
was rated kindly in her leg one win by Yannick Gingras before sprinting home in
28 flat for the 1:58.2 record.
Pacing
fillies will wrap the NJSS races in the eleventh race where Livingthedream
will command respect from her eight female rivals. She won both legs at a jog,
forwardly placed in each by driver Marcus Miller and has drawn the rail for
Friday’s race. Trainer Erv Miller bred and owns the If I Can Dream lass with
partner Ron Michelon.
Post time on Friday is 7:15
p.m.
