Even though there were four return winners from last week’s Opening Day card, it was the invader from Rideau Carleton Raceway, Beach Runner A M, who supported his race favourite status with a tough victory in the 10th race feature pace at Hippodrome 3R on Sunday, May 8.
Racing over a track labeled “good” with a two second allowance due to rain and cold blustery weather, driver Sylvain Lacaille took no chances with Beach Runner A M as they went right to the lead and held it the entire one-mile race, holding off a late charge by C C Nite Raider (Pascal Berube) to win by a neck in 2:00.4. Matts Phil (Francis Picard) was third.
The win was the second in six starts this year for Beach Runner A M, a nine-year-old gelded son of Beach Of Faith, who is trained and owned by Alain Martin of Gatineau, Que. The winner paid $4.10 for the victory.
For Lacaille, the victory was one of two winners on the afternoon card as he also won the third race trot with Jewels In The Sand ($3.20).
The total handle, simulcasting and on-track numbers continued to rise over prior year at the Hippodrome 3R. Sunday’s total handle was up 52.8 percent, simulcasting up 385 percent and on-track handle, despite the inclement weather, was up 7.9 percent.
“It is great to see positive numbers over last year in our total handle, on-track and simulcasting again today,” said Vincent Trudel, general manager at 3R. “We had not great weather this afternoon and were going against the Meadowlands big afternoon race program. We will continue to work on having full race fields and adding more simulcast tracks to carry our race product.”
To view Sunday's harness racing results, click on the following link: Sunday Results - Hippodrome 3R.
(Hippodrome 3R)