With no eliminations needed, seven fillies will advance to the $65,000 Helen Smith Final and five to the $50,725 Marion Dancer Final, both of which will be contested on Friday, September 9 at Freehold Raceway
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The Helen Smith for three-year-old New Jersey-sired trotting fillies and the Marion Dancer for two-year-old New Jersey-sired trotting fillies are sponsored by the Standardbred Breeders & Owners Association of New Jersey (SBOANJ).
The Helen Smith field will include three daughters of Classic Photo (Firstclassprincess, Pure Barre and Tayas Photo), three by Windsongs Legacy (Ilia, Katie Done Did It and Windsong De Vie) and one by Chocolatier (Dont Cry Lindy).
The top money-earners in the field are Dont Cry Lindy, who has banked $74,253 lifetime for Martin Sternberg of Brookville, New York and Alvin Katz of Port Washington, New York, and Firstclassprincess, who has earned $72,884 for Michael Andrew of Gorham, Maine.
Dont Cry Lindy, trained by Linda Toscano, enjoyed her biggest paydays when she finished second in the 2010 Marion Dancer and the 2011 Lady Suffolk, both at Freehold, and a fourth in last fall’s Matron Stakes at Dover Downs. She has a career record of one win, six seconds and two thirds in 21 starts.
Firstclassprincess has finished in the money in 11 of her 16 lifetime starts. The Trond Smedshammer protégé was second in her Simpson division at Vernon Downs and her Duenna split at the Meadowlands. Her last outing was a fourth in the $175,000 New Jersey Sire Stakes Final on August 13.
Originally raced as the Charles I. Smith Filly Trot, this stakes was renamed in 1995 to honour Smith’s wife, Helen, who died in 1994 at the age of 90. The Helen Smith stakes record of 1:56.3 was set by Muscle Shirt by Muscles Yankee in 2008.
Super sire Muscles Yankee has four of his daughters heading into the Marion Dancer (Blue Muscles, Hula La, Purple Rain and Valentines Way).
The fifth finalist is Riverfest, who is by Windsongs Legacy, and won her only pari-mutuel start. The Joseph King-trained filly captured a division of the Reynolds Stakes at Pocono Downs in 1:58.4. She is co-owned by King and Marvin Meyer of New York City.
In 2010 the Harold Dancer Filly Trot was renamed in memory of respected driver-trainer and New Jersey native Harold Dancer’s wife, Marion. The stakes record for the Marion Dancer, since it moved to Freehold in 2000, is 1:59 flat held by 2005 winner Lovely.
(SBOANJ)