Chris Lancaster trainee If Only Id Known posted a blowout victory in the $10,500 featured fillies and mares pace on the Saturday (April 23) card at Century Downs, which celebrated the seven-year anniversary of harness racing moving to the new Calgary oval.
Assigned the outermost post in the feature, driver Michael Hennessy hustled If Only Id Known to the lead and blazed the track by each beam, posting a clip of :27.1, :55.3 and 1:24.3 before scooting clear of her competition around the final turn to a 1:54.1 victory. The four-year-old Shadow Play mare paced over the line 11-3/4-lengths better than Jessies Girl, who rallied for second. Outlawstormywether finished third and Miss Itunes took fourth.
Co-owned by Lancaster with Rob Ostashek, If Only Id Known won her second race from 13 starts this season and her ninth from 35 overall. She has now banked $104,807 and paid $2.40 to win.
As part of the festivities for Century Downs’ seven-year anniversary, a pair of Hall of Fame announcers visited the track. Vance Cameron, voice of harness racing on Prince Edward Island, and Roger Huston, the voice of the Little Brown Jug and longtime caller at The Meadows, both called races at the Calgary oval.
Vance Cameron (R) with the connections of Juliogetthestretch
Cameron called races on the first half of the card with Huston then taking over the mic from Race 7 until the nightcap in Race 13. For Cameron, Century Downs is the 20th different Canadian racetrack he has called at while for Huston it marked his 152nd track of announcing.
Roger Huston (fourth from R) in the winner's circle with Team Kootenay Lager
Racing began at Century Downs in 2015, taking over as the home of harness racing in Calgary after Alberta Downs hosted its final meet in 2014. The track is a unique harness configuration as an 11/16ths-mile oval, a sixteenth larger in circumference than the traditional five-eighths oval.
To view Saturday’s harness racing results, click the following link: Saturday Results – Century Downs.