It certainly wasn’t planned but as it worked out Monticello Raceway’s Passover Pace will become the Passover Trot this year

. And though the gait of the horses for the race has changed the race will still be presented on Thursday, April 12 which falls during the Passover Holiday.

According to the racing office they couldn’t fill any of the of the low-priced pacing classes but they could fill a trot, so when the track’s general manager Shawn Wiles found out the scenario he said: “Let’s go with that instead. Besides most of the drivers in the race have competed in the Billings Series and they used to driving trotters anyway.”

Carded as race number eight on Thursday’s 11-race program, the Passover Trot will still feature the same drivers who were to handle pacers.

Since the events inception back in 1999 all events were contested on the pace although one year (2001) perhaps by the success of the previous Passover Paces, a Passover Trot and a Passover Pace were carded with the majority of the trotting entries coming from Billings participants who brought their own horses for the events. However they never got a chance to race. Halfway through the card a freak thunder storm knocked out the electricity in the entire village forcing cancellation of the rest of the card.

“As the seventh race was in progress the lights went out and all power was lost. The race finished but obviously the payoffs couldn’t be posted. However all tickets in the race will be paid off,” then track general manger Bill Sullivan related at the time.

So with the cancellation of the two Passover races two weeks later one Passover Pace was scheduled and the Passover Trot fell into oblivion. Since then there were no other Passover Trots. But now on April 12, the race for the diagonally-gaited standardbreds will go to post with hopes of no repeat of the infamous day on April 9, 2001.

(Monticello Raceway)