Limelight Beach, the 2014 Little Brown Jug winner, will make his seasonal debut in Saturday’s (February 20) featured event at the Meadowlands Racetrack. He had been set to make his debut last Saturday, but the Big M was forced to cancel the card due to extremely cold winter weather.
The five-year-old gelded son of Somebeachsomewhere-Benear will tackle seven rivals in the $20,000 upper-level pace (Race 8). He has been installed as the 3-1 second choice on the morning line.
As a four-year-old, Limelight Beach only managed a pair of wins from 21 starts. Nonetheless, he maintained a string of minor placings in stakes events through North America, including a second-place finish in the Prix d’́Été at Hippodrome 3R and a third-place finish in the Canadian Pacing Derby at Mohawk Racetrack. Yannick Gingras will be reunited with the Ron Burke trainee, and the pair will start from Post 8. Among the other top contenders are the 5-2 morning line favourite, Rockeyed Optimist (Post 7, Tim Tetrick), who was just outkicked in his seasonal debut last two weeks ago, and Ashleys Husband (Post 2, Brett Miller), whose ferocious :25.4 final quarter propelled him to victory in the top pacing event that same night.
A pair of sub-featured $13,000 conditioned paces will comprise half of the late Pick 4 sequence, with third-level fields contesting the ninth and eleventh races. In the ninth event, Mark Capone trainee Kingofthejungle (Post 9, Andy Miller) seeks to make amends after having faced top-level competition, but will square off against Meadows invader Some Kinda Beach (Post 2, Jim Marohn, Jr.) and Yonkers shipper UF Rockin Dragon (Post 6, Tim Tetrick), both of which will be stepping down from tougher competition, as well. The eleventh race is equally competitive, given the consistent success of Cobalt Man (Post 1, Tim Tetrick) and Dune Dude (Post 5, Yannick Gingras) at this class along with Jacksrluckytoo (Post 6, Joe Bongiorno), who has proven a gritty contender on a consistent basis of late.
The pair of sub-featured events are the foundation of the late Pick 4, which carries a $50,000 guaranteed pool and will begin in Race 9. Earlier in the card, another Pick 4 and a Pick 5 boast $55,000 in additional guaranteed pools, while over $123,000 in carryover money will await punters in the night’s two 20-cent Jackpot High 5 wagers should neither jackpot be claimed on Friday.
First-race post time for Saturday’s 14-dash program is 6:35 p.m.
(Meadowlands Racetrack)