While Clash Of The Titans opens at the box office Friday night, the Meadowlands will feature its own 3-D version as Lucky Jim and Enough Talk meet in the $50,000 opening round of the Su Mac Lad Series
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The last two Dan Patch Award winners in the Older Trotter of the Year category will face each other for the first time this season in the Su Mac Lad, which is carded as Race 10. Joining them is trainer Trond Smedshammer's formidable duo of Arch Madness and Likeabatoutahell, along with Wind Surfer, Sunland Dakota and Big Boy Lloyd. The first stakes race of the season for free-for-all trotters, the Su Mac Lad culminates in an estimated $123,000 final on Friday, April 16.
Lucky Jim, the 2009 Dan Patch champion, jogged to a 1:52.3 win in his five-year-old debut on March 19 for the husband-and-wife team Andy and Julie Miller. Last season, Lucky Jim won 17 of 18 races, topped by a 1:50.1 World Record in the Nat Ray Invitational. Although he is now racing without the respiratory medication Lasix, not much else has changed about the son of S Js Photo-Hawaiian Sierra from ages four to five.
"He got a little bit bigger, but his mannerisms and his equipment have not changed at all," Julie Miller said. "In his four-year-old year, we were giving him the minimum amount of Lasix that a horse can have. With the layoff, everything heals up when it comes to their breathing and airway issues. I trained him down this whole season without ever giving him Lasix, so I said, 'Why add it now?' So we decided to take him off of it."
Installed as the prohibitive 4-5 morning line favourite, Lucky Jim bids for his sixteenth straight Meadowlands victory from post five on Friday night. If all goes well, the Millers and owners David and John Prushnok and William Gregg will send Lucky Jim to Sweden for the famed Elitlopp on Sunday, May 30 at Solvalla Racecourse.
Enough Talk, the 2008 Dan Patch Award winner for Older Trotter of the Year, made a strong statement in his return to the racetrack after an eight-month layoff on March 26. With regular pilot Ron Pierce at the lines, the seven-year-old gelding crushed the invitational field by more than four lengths in 1:52.2. After an award-winning season that included the fastest trotting mile of all time (1:49.3 at Colonial Downs), Enough Talk made just nine starts in 2009. His season ended with a disappointing performance in the Maple Leaf Trot on July 18.
"He's had some chronic issues that we've tried to baby," said his owner-trainer Peter Kleinhans "They're still around, but hopefully they're under control."
Enough Talk will start from post seven as the 4-1 second choice on the morning line in the Su Mac Lad.
"We're looking forward to the challenge of facing Lucky Jim [Friday night]," Kleinhans said. "Last year, Enough Talk never really got to show his best race against Lucky Jim. Hopefully he'll have that opportunity this year."
Kleinhans will be the featured guest on Meadowlands Racetrack's Friday pre-card broadcast, which begins at 6:30 p.m. Fans can e-mail questions for Kleinhans to answer on-air to [email protected].
(The Meadowlands)