BY FRANK
DRUCKER, Publicity Director, Empire City @ Yonkers Raceway
YONKERS, NY,
Thursday, April 4, 2019—We’re getting down to both the nitty and the gritty.
This weekend,
Yonkers Raceway hosts the fourth—or penultimate—rounds of both the Blue Chip
Matchmaker and George Morton Levy Memorial Pacing Series.
Friday night (Apr.
5), the lasses go in three, $40,000 Matchmaker events, consecutively carded as
races 7 through 9.
The opening
division cries out ‘two-speed number’ with pole-sitting Don’t Think Twice A
(Jason Bartlett) and Feelin’ Red Hot (George Brennan, post 3). The former owns
a Matchmaker win and pair of seconds, while the latter—just in time for the NHL
playoffs—eyes a hat trick.
The second event
sees another three-peat wannabe in Bettor Joy N (Tim Tetrick, post 7), starting
outside her foes.
Ideal Lifestyle A
(Brennan, post 1) has chased home Bettor Joy N the last couple of tries.
The final
Matchmaker grouping rolls through defending champion Shartin N (Tetrick, post
4) as the millionairess is looking for her third prelim victory.
Seaswift Joy N
(Jim Marohn Jr., post 8), yet another series two-fer, has won four of her five
local starts.
Saturday evening
(Apr. 6th) fourth foray of the Levy was drawn and quartered into
$50,000 divisions (races 5,7,8 and 10).
The first
get-together asks the musical question, ‘Can Pacing Major N (Jordan Stratton,
post 2) do it again?’
Fresh off last
week’s 67-1 stunner—and first board finish of the season—the Major hooks other
round winners in Endeavor (Bartlett, post 3) and JJ Flynn (Tetrick, post 4).
Saturday’s second
event fins More the Better N (Scott Zeron, post 6) in search of a third series
win, but stuck with a first poor draw.
Anythingforlove A
(Joe Bongiorno, post 1) was an opening-round winner and figures to cut this
mile.
The third group is
led by Lyons Steel (Stratton, post 6), who threw down the fastest mile (1:50.4)
of the local season a week ago.
Ideal Jimmy (Brent
Holland, post 8) won his first two series tries, but ran out of racetrack a
week ago.
The Downtown Bus
(Zeron, post 4) and The Wall (Bongiorno, post 5) also have preliminary wins to
their credit.
Saturday night’s
final division is led by two-round winner Western Fame (Dan Dube, post 3), who
convincingly whipped Dr. J Hanover (Tetrick, post 6) on the square when they
opposed one another a week ago.
