Inverness Raceway will kick off its 2025 harness racing season this weekend, with seven races drawn for the Opening Day program on Sunday, June 1.
Post time on Sunday is 1 p.m. ADT for the Inverness season opener, which was postponed a week due to upgrades to the track's sound system.
Trainer Raymond and Leah MacKinnon's nine-year-old pacer Sunshine Lou, the 2024 Inverness Horse of the Year, will make his 2025 debut in the afternoon's featured finale, the $2,000 Winners Over Pace. A six-time winner last year at the Inverness half-mile oval, the Sunshine Beach-Carte De Mode gelding will be driven by regular reinsman Campbell MacIsaac from post two and is the 5-2 morning line favourite.
In addition to familiar foes Spectrum Seelster, Eastcoast Invader and Windemere Best Man -- all lining up to his outside -- Sunshine Lou will face Nova Scotia newcomer Light My Shadow, a 23-time winner in Western Canada acquired by local trainer Zach Mullins, with that rival starting to his inside in the track's top class.
The 2025 racing schedule includes Sunday afternoon or Wednesday evening programs weekly through October. To view the complete race date calendar, click here.
Among the season's highlights, Inverness will host stakes action on Sunday, June 22 with three-year-old pacing colts competing in a leg of the Atlantic Sires Stakes and three-year-old pacing fillies in a leg of the Phil Pinkney Memorial Stakes.
Sophomore pacing fillies will compete in a leg of the Atlantic Sires Stakes on Sunday, July 27, along with two and three-year-old trotters. The Inverness Invitational Pace will also be featured on that action-packed matinee program.
Inverness will later host another round of Atlantic Sires Stakes on Sunday, Sept. 28 for two-year-old pacing fillies.
To view Sunday's harness racing entries, click the following link: Sunday Entries - Inverness Raceway // Program Pages (courtesy TrackIT).
(Standardbred Canada)