The 2026 harness racing meet at Connell Park in Woodstock, N.B. is set to begin on Thursday, July 30 with the opening day card featuring the Dawn & Dr. Ted Bremner Memorial Stakes for three-year-old pacers.

Woodstock Connell Park will host 11 race dates with the meet running through the end of October. Post time will be 7 p.m. (ADT) for the first six race days through Sept. 18 then switch to 1 p.m. for the remainder of the meet. To view the race date schedule, click here.

The Bremner Memorial highlights Thursday's nine-race program with the stakes event split into two $14,500 divisions for the colts and one $27,800 division for the fillies.

Brody MacPhee will drive the 8-5 morning line favourites in the colt divisions, starting with the Tom Weatherbie-trained Oceanview Lou in the first event, scheduled as race three, and Mclovin for Jared Perrot in the sixth race. Both sophomores have consistently hit the board in Maritimes stakes action and both have drawn post four in their respective five-horse fields. 

Another top colt contender will be last season's Atlantic Breeders Crown and Maritime Breeders Stakes champion Sporty Anthony, who added a Donnie & George Turner Memorial Stakes victory to his resume last month for trainer Jason Biggar. Rising star Landon Campbell will get the catch-driving call and they will start just inside of Oceanview Lou.

Recent Atlantic Sires Stakes winner Zero Two Sixty will leave from post two in the second division in his return to the Woodstock oval, where he equalled the two-year-old track record of 1:57.3 last August when winning the Milton Downey Memorial. Stephen Trites will pick up the drive on the $70,000 career winner for trainer Sifroi Melanson.

The fillies will take to the track in race eight with multiple stakes winner Beach Jewels headlining the field of six for trainer Kevin MacLean. Jason Hughes will pick up the catch-drive on the filly who has a P.E.I. Colt Stakes Gold victory on her record this season with career earnings of nearly $80,000.

Starting just to her outside, MacPhee will drive another top contender in Weatherbie's Fern Hill Kream, a Phil Pinkney Memorial Stakes winner last month.

Multiple other stakes events are scheduled over the course of the 2026 season include the Milton Downey Memorial, New Brunswick Breeders Stakes, Barrueau-MacIssaac Memorial, The Maritimer and Blood Money, plus a pair of Invitationals, the Walter Dale and Rod Goguen Memorial.

To view Thursday's harness racing entries, click the following links: Thursday Entries - Woodstock Connell Park // Program Pages (courtesy TrackIT).

(Standardbred Canada)