Divine Art will look to win her 18th straight race when she heads the cast for Sunday night’s $20,000 California Sire Stakes for the four-year-old pacing mares at Cal Expo.
An Alberta-bred daughter of Outrageous Art, Divine Art is owned, trained and driven by Gerry Longo. She scored the first 12 victories of the streak in her native Canada, where she was an O'Brien Award divisional runner-up as a three-year-old, and has added five more snapshots since venturing to California and joining Longo’s shedrow.
Divine Art equalled her lifetime mark of 1:53.2 when she accounted for the DHA Free-for-All two weeks ago. She was hard used first over to the stretch that day before drawing away to a 3-1/4-length score.
Sent off at 1-5 in last week’s Filly and Mare Open, Divine Art was parked to the lead at the quarter and then had a comfortable trip on the front end to the drive. She had a length and a half advantage at mid-stretch and ended up lasting by a head over a hard-charging Give Me This Dance while again stopping the timer in a sharp 1:53.2.
Divine Art will start from post four. Give Me This Dance once again looms her main rival and they will be joined by Park With Me Nancy, Anotherblazingwoman and Cenalta Flash.
Sunday post time is 5 p.m. (PST), with the California Sire Stakes scheduled as the sixth race.
Sire Stakes action kicks off on Friday night with a $20,000 opening leg division for the four-year-old male pacers featuring Wayne Knittel's homebred Worthy Oppponent as the 6-5 favourite for driver Luke Plano and trainer Bob Johnson. That card begins at 6:45 p.m. (PST).
(With files from Cal Expo)