BY
FRANK DRUCKER, Publicity Director, Empire City @ Yonkers Raceway
YONKERS, NY, Thursday, July 26, 2018—Not
every good 3-year-old trotter finds his (or her) way into the Hambletonian.
There’s a pretty fair Yonkers Raceway
group gathering Friday night (July 27th) in the $173,500 New York
Sire Stakes Dick McGuire Trot for the sophomore colts and geldings.
Post time for the dozen-race card s 6:50
PM, with the pair of $86,750 sire stakes events—named for the former New York
Knickerbocker standout, Hall of Famer and avid horseplayer—going as races 7 and
8.
The opening division includes
Helpisontheway (Brian Sears, post 3), who held sway in last weekend’s $61,900
boys’ division of the Tompkins Memorial at the Meadowlands.
The son of Chapter Seven is thrice a
winner in seven seasonal starts, including a statebred win at Tioga (life-best
1:52.2. Linda Toscano trains for Camelot and Bays Stables & Little E LLC.
Winning Shadows (Mike Simons, post 2) was
a fresh-Lasix, 12-1 upsetter at Monticello in his last start. The Credit Winner
gelding, trained by Jake Huff for co-owners Our Horse Cents and J&T Silva
Stables, has won three of his eight seasonal starts.
Clive Bigsby (Mark MacDonald, post 7) was
runner-up (to Six Pack) in last season’s $225,000 frosh final, while Tito
(Brent Holland, post 5) is trying to regain some of 2017’s nearly-$240,000
form.
Purpose Blue Chip (Dan Daley, post 8) has
a resume highlighted by sire stakes wins at Monticello and Buffalo.
Friday night’s second and final division
sees The Veteran (Jordan Stratton, post 2) as arguably the horse to beat. The
Muscle Mass colt, co-owned by (trainer) George Ducharme, Steven Michaels, W J
Donovan and Jim Winske, has been the odds-on choice in his last four tries (two
sires, two overnights). He settled for second (to Winning Shadows) at Monti in
his latest and is 4-for-7 this season.
Perlucky (Trond Smedshammer, post 5)
enters off a 15-1 Catskills NYSS win, his first of in a half-dozen ‘18i tries.
Smedshammer also trains the son of Lucky Chuck for Purple Haze Stables.
Don (Jason Bartlett, post 7) has sire
stakes wins at Vernon (life-best 1:54.3) and Buffalo.
New York Sire Stakes continue here Monday
night (July 30th) with the $172,000 Bruce Hamilton Pace (3-year-old
colts/geldings).
