In the opening and second legs, no standout individual has emerged from the competitive Willowdale Pacing Series for four-year-olds, making Saturday night’s $60,000 final at Woodbine something of a free-for-all for horses and horsemen, and a wide-open opportunity for bettors
.
Dinner Guest (Chad Schmiedge), Anderlecht (Igor Vrablic), and Real Nice (Bob Young) all scored victories in the preliminary rounds of this series, but none has been able to score back-to-back.
Among the runners-up, the most consistent, perhaps, has been The Admiral, a gelded son of Michigan sire Admirals Galley who was second to Dinner Guest in the opening round on January 10, then took the show spot to Real Nice on January 17. On both occasions, the student of Michigan-based Marie St. Charles was within a length and a half of the victor, in his first starts on Canadian soil.
Paul MacDonell pinch-hit in the bike for The Admiral on his last outing, but regular pilot Brad Kramer will return when The Admiral, currently rated at 5-1, goes postward in the wide-open Willowdale final on Saturday, January 24. It’s Race 8, post time 9:57 p.m.
To view Saturday's entries, click here.
(WEG)