Hanover Raceway’s fan capacity will expand to 635 this Saturday, July 17, just in time for the OLG Ontario Women’s Driving Championship and the first of six provincial stakes events the Grey County oval will host this summer.

Eight of Ontario’s top female drivers will compete in the first five races on the Saturday afternoon program, vying for points in the driving championship which continues on Sunday, July 18 at Dresden Raceway, and the afternoon will wrap up with a pair of $7,000 Ontario Racing Prospect Series divisions for the two-year-old pacing colts.

Natasha Day will be vying for the driving title and will also be in the race bike behind Shanghai Ky in the first Prospect Series division for trainer Scott McNiven and owners Kimberley McNiven of Putnam and Donald Douglas of Ingersoll, ON. The pair will start from Post 2 in a field that includes both winners of the July 9 season opener, Words Fail Me from Post 1 and Two Drinks Ago from Post 5.

“I was talking to Scott McNiven about him yesterday (Wednesday) actually and he just goes, ‘He’s ready to win’. That’s basically all he said. He just goes, ‘He’s ready to win,’ and I just went, ‘Well that’s all I need to know then’,” said Day. “It’s a tough little field, it’s only like his second start, but Scott thinks he’s ready to go. Scotty knows what he’s talking about, so I won’t disagree.”

A regular in the Hanover Raceway driving colony, Day has an advantage over her rivals in the championship. Not only is she familiar with the half-mile oval, she and Marie-Claude Auger of Trois-Rivieres, QC are the only full-time drivers in the field. Marielle Enberg of Guelph, Pam Forgie of Goderich, Maggie Jones of Barrie, Britt Kennedy of Ingersoll, Andrea Leon of Maidstone and Julie Walker of Carlisle, ON do the majority of their driving behind horses they own or train.

“I know a lot of the horses too, so that’s going to be to my advantage,” said Day. “And I know how some of the girls drive, so you can kind of match up how these horses are going to be driven by the driver; who’s going to be heading out early and who’s going to be pulling first-over. Strategy is going to be a big thing for the weekend. You mightn’t have the best horse in the race, but it’s going to be all strategically played as far as how it will all turn out.”

The drivers will be awarded points based on where they finish in each of the 10 races, eight points for a win and on down to one point for an eighth-place result. The top point earner at the end of the two-day event will be declared the OLG Ontario Women’s Driving Champion.

In addition to being a showcase for female drivers, the event is also a fundraiser for the Canadian Cancer Society for Cervical Cancer. The women will donate their purse winnings from the championship races and Hanover Raceway is hosting an online fundraising auction which wraps up Saturday afternoon at 6 pm. For details about the auction, click here.

“I was definitely excited for Hanover Raceway, which is kind of my home track, to be able to put on an event like this,” said Owen Sound, ON native Julie Walker, who will have a large contingent of supporters on hand from her hometown. “And we’re bringing awareness to cancer as well, which for some people it hits home a lot harder than other people.”

The OLG Ontario Women’s Driving Championship kicks things off at 1:30 p.m. in the first race and continues in Races 2, 3, 4, and 5. The two-year-old pacing colt Prospect Series divisions are slated as Races 8 and 10.

(OSS)