This weekend, Yonkers Raceway offers the fifth and final preliminary rounds in both the Blue Chip Matchmaker (Friday night) and George Morton Levy Memorial Pacing Series (Saturday night).
The lasses in the Matchmaker go in consecutive (races six and seven), $40,000 divisions. Though series points-leader Al Raza N has the week off, just about all the other leading ladies are in-to-go. Sell A Bit N (Jordan Stratton, post four) and Yagonnakissmeornot (Dan Dube, post two) -- each with a pair of leg wins -- drew into the first and second groupings, respectively, while Krispy Apple (Jason Bartlett, post two) and Carolsideal (Dube, post three) found their way into the opening scrum.
Yagonnakissmeornot, Krispy Apple and Carolsideal won last Friday’s fourth-round events.
The Levy has been whittled down to a series-low three $50,000 groupings (races five through seven), with the last of ‘em getting the deserved attention. A perfect Bit Of A Legend N (Stratton, post four), four-for-four in his series soirees, hooks reigning U.S. Horse of the Year Wiggle It Jiggleit (Montrell Teague, post seven) for the first time.
Not that a 25-large winner’s share is chump change, but neither actually needs to win this race. “Legend” is already in the final (both series conclude Saturday night, April 23), and Wiggle It Jiggleit cannot qualify due to his late (third leg) Levy debut.
Bit If A Legend N enters off a pair of 1:51.2 wins in succession, while Wiggle It Jiggleit authored a 1:51.1 public workout in winning his event last weekend.
The opening division is led by P H Supercam (Bartlett, post one), Lettucerockthem A (Brian Sears, post two) and All Bets Off (Matt Kakaley, post three). Series “doublers” Mach It So (Tim Tetrick, post two) and Lucan Hanover (Brett Miller, post seven) highlight the second event, which also includes one Foiled Again (Yannick Gingras, post one). The sport’s richest-ever horse ($7.3 million) had last week off after two fourths (one in a dead-heat) and a second in three series starts.
Matchmaker and Levy standings can be viewed by clicking their respective links. Be advised that the standings do not necessarily indicate qualifiers for finals and/or consolations. Those shall be determined by the race office, as per conditions of the series.
(With files from Yonkers Raceway)