For the third consecutive season, the $210,000 Charlie Hill Memorial will bring the best older trotters in the sport to Eldorado Scioto Downs on Saturday (June 11).
Last year’s champ, multi-millionaire Bee A Magician, will not be making the trip to Columbus due to injury, but a rock-solid field is assembled for this year’s edition.
Early favouritism should belong to Muscle Up The Goal. The four-year-old stallion, trained by Chris Beaver and owned by Synerco Ventures Inc. of Toronto, Ont., deserves the honour as he’s perfect in three starts this year, all open length victories. In fact, the son of Muscle Mass comes in off two track record setting performances at The Meadows and Northfield Park.
His connections, in a show of confidence, have ponied up the $10,000 supplemental nomination fee to get a crack at this group.
The Hill Memorial will go as race eight of a powerhouse 15-race card which also features Ohio Sire Stakes action for three-year-old colt pacers. First post time for Saturday’s card will be 6:30 p.m. (EDT).
Here's the 2016 Charlie Hill Memorial field (with listed drivers):
1. Southwind Pepino (Hugh Beatty)
2. Il Sogno Dream (Ronnie Wrenn Jr.)
3. Muscle Up The Goal (Aaron Merriman)
4. Natural Herbie (Verlin Yoder)
5. Flanagan Memory (Jason Brewer)
6. Obrigado (Mark MacDonald)
7. Homicide Hunter (Mark MacDonald)
8. Gural Hanover (Chris Page)
9. DW’s NY Yank (Josh Sutton)
10. Opening Night (Ronnie Wrenn Jr.).
(with files from Scioto)