The elimination races for the 2022 Ron Banks Memorial FFA Pace will highlight Sunday’s (Aug. 7) nine-race program at Running Aces.
The event is for fillies and mares, three-year-olds and up. There are two elimination splits, each going for $17,500. The top four finishers in each elimination, as well as the fastest fifth-place finisher will advance to the $35,000 Final on Sunday (Aug. 14).
There were 15 nominations to this year’s Banks event and 14 have entered the eliminations.
Headlining the starters will be Hottieonthehorizon (Luke Plano, 2-1), who has won six of 10 local starts this year in the top Mares Open ranks for trainer Rick Lancaster and drew post 6 in the first elimination split (Race 6). She will take on recent Running Aces invader Graceful Horizon (Dean Magee, 5-2), who drew post 2 for trainer Jessica Johnson and will be making her second local start. The pair are both daughters of Vertical Horizon and they were separated by just a head at the wire on July 21 after battling nose to nose for the final half mile, with Graceful Horizon prevailing in 1:53.
The second elimination split (Race 7) is Headlined by Rockin With Lou (Dean Magee, 2-1), who drew post 3 and comes into the event off a dominating 8-1/2-length romp in a conditioned pace on Thursday night (Aug. 4) in 1:53.1 with Magee in the bike. The sharp daughter of Sweet Lou has won 11 of 22 races this year for owner-trainer Gerald Longo. Second choice on the morning line is east coast invader Bettor Trix N (Luke Plano, 5-2), a daughter of Bettors Delight who is making her first local start for trainer Jessica Johnson. She had been racing in Maryland and Delaware and has a seasonal mark of 1:52.4 taken at Rosecroft Raceway.
The 20-cent Pick-5 Jackpot wager has a carryover of $6,192.91 and will start in Race 5, while the 50-cent Late Pick-4 has a guaranteed total pool of $3,000 and gets underway in Race 6.
Post time at Running Aces is 7:00 p.m. (CDT).
(Running Aces)