BY
FRANK DRUCKER, Publicity Director, Empire City @ Yonkers Raceway
YONKERS, NY, Monday, March 12,
2018—Yonkers Raceway’s race office found itself quite popular this (Monday)
afternoon, as among the usual Friday/Saturday double draw there were plenty of
big girls and big boys.
Friday night’s (March 16th)
opening round of the Blue Chip Matchmaker saw four consecutively-carded (races
7 through 10) divisions, each worth $40,000. Conveniently, 32 high-end lasses
were parsed into the quarter of eight-horse fields.
Defending series champion Mackenzie A, who
resurfaced her last Friday (March 9th) in a qualifier, makes her
seasonal purse debut from post position No. 7 in the final division. Jordan
Stratton again does the honors for the now-6-year-old Down Under daughter of
Rock N Roll Heaven.
Peter Tritton trains for Von Knoblauch
Stables and Ellen Kinser.
Saturday evening’s (March 17th) beginning of the
George Morton Levy Memorial Pacing Series goes with five, $50,000 Free-For-All
divisions (races 4 through 7 and 11). Each race was neatly filled with a
seven-horse field.
Last season’s series winner, Keystone Velocity, makes his ’18 debut from
outside his six rivals in the second event. Dan Dube again takes a seat for
co-owner/trainer Rene Allard. Now a spry 10-year-old, Keystone Velocity comes
off a career-best $783,000 season in 2017.
Each series offers five preliminary legs—ladies first
Fridays, guys Saturday—with both finals set for Saturday night (Apr. 21st)
Unrelated to
this conversation Sunday matinees resume this weekend (March 18th),
with first post at 11:45 AM.
