BY
FRANK DRUCKER, Publicity Director, Empire City @ Yonkers Raceway
YONKERS, NY,
Sunday, May 6, 2018—New York Sire Stakes season begins Tuesday night (May 8th),
with Yonkers Raceway hosting the $171,900 Joe Goldstein Trot for 3-year-old
fillies.
It was quite
convenient, as four, seven-horse fields—at $42,975 each—go consecutively as
races 7 through 10.
Post time for the
11-race card is 6:50 PM.
The opening event
is led by the season-debuting Plunge Blue Chip (Ake Svantsedt, post 3), The
daughter of Muscles Yankee tore through her division a season ago, including a
track-record (1:56.2) flogging for her weight class here in mid-September. She
then came up ugly in the $225,000 final, but rebounded to win the $420,750
Goldsmith Maid at the Meadowlands.
Plunge Blue Chip,
co-owned (with Blue Chip Bloodstock and Tomas Andersson) and trained by her
driver, went 9-for-10 as a frosh, earning $404,690.
The second
division finds Fury Road (Svanstedt, post 4), who nearly pulled off a 64-1 tote
buster in last season’s statebred finale. A Muscle Mass miss, she won thrice
with four seconds ($143,895) as a rookie.
Svanstedt trains
for Knutsson Trotting.
Alloveragain (Tim Tetrick, post 1) wins the draw for her sire stakes/small
track/stateside debut. The daughter of Credit Winner, co-owned (as Bax Racing),
by (trainer) John Bax and Glengate Farms, enters off a pair of overnight wins,
the latter in a life-best 1:54.4
The evening’s third statebred soiree is an invasion of ‘those Marion Marauder
people,’ Paula Wellwood, Mike Keeling and Scott Zeron have Jordan Blue Chip
from post position No. 3.
Taking the same route as Alloveragain, the daughter of Chapter Seven is making
her first try over four turns, in sire stakes and across the border. Her frosh
highlight was a third-place effort in Mohawk’s $307,5000 Peaceful Way.
The first shall be last, at least as far as these races were divided. Lucky Ava
(Svanstedt, post 1), last seen winning the 225G finale a season ago (at 21-1),
gets to pole dance in the evening’s final NYSS group.
The season-bowing daughter of Lucky Chucky, co-owned by (trainer) Svanstedt,
Little E LLC and Van Camp Trotting, won half of her 10 ’17 tries ($203,596).
