When Sock It Away puts his nose on the starting gate, it is usually followed by a trip to the winner’s circle and the champion pacer will look for the trend to continue in the Boxing Day Pace on Sunday (Dec. 26) at Red Shores Racetrack and Casino at the Charlottetown Driving Park.
The 13-dash Boxing Day presentation starts off at 12:30 p.m., with the top class lining up behind the Metro Home Building Centre starting gate in race 12. The surefire favourite in that dash is Sock It Away after his December record performance of 1:54.4 last week for trainer Kevin MacLean and owner Reg MacPherson of Stratford, P.E.I. The champion son of Pang Shui has rail control in the $3,400 Boxing Day Pace with Marc Campbell getting the catch-driving call from post one. Sock It Away looks to expand on his excellent record of 50 trips behind the starting gate and just 17 of those where he failed to find the wire first and the other 33 resulting in trips to the winner’s circle.
The richest Atlantic-bred pacer of all-time, The Rev, leaves from post two with Gilles Barrieau making his return to the race bike behind his trainee after the multiple O’Brien Award-winning horseman was injured in a racing accident in October.
Moonwriter (Jason Hughes) has post three, with Ladylike (David Dowling) leaving from post four, Mc Pat (Adam Merner) with post five and Bugsy Maguire (Dale Spence) with post six.
Peter MacPhee sees Sock It Away as the inevitable favourite in the Post Time Picks: “It’s safe to say that Sock It Away is back and that was an eye-popping win last time out. Now he gets the rail and Campbell hops up so we’re putting him back on top and so should you.”
The $2,500 afternoon finale has Better Than Cash selected to overcome post six with Ambyr Campbell in the driver’s seat of the son of Betterthancheddar that she owns and trains. A winner of four races in 2021, Better Than Cash shows finishing on-the-board right down his program page but will have lots of company on his quest for the winner’s circle. His top contenders are slated to be Legendary Ron (Hughes) and Selkirk Echo (Corey MacPherson).
Catch all the action live at the track or tune into the worldwide Race Day broadcast at Redshores.ca. Live streaming is also available at the Red Shores Youtube page and online wagering can be found at HPIBet.com.
To view Sunday's harness racing entries, click on the following link: Sunday Entries - Charlottetown Driving Park.
(With files from Red Shores)