Race fans will be treated to a feature event that literally anybody could win as Red Shores at the Summerside Raceway opens up its season for Victoria Day racing on Monday afternoon.
The 12-dash program starts the action off at 1:00 p.m. Customers have a chance to win prizes when they receive a Mystery Voucher through the purchase of race programs on-site. Fans can also tag tickets for a chance to win $50 jackpots on every race while the Pick 5 for $500 is also back for another season.
The $2,100 featured pace is slated as race 11 on the program with a field of six and no heavy favourites. Confident Fella is the classifier's choice from post 2 for driver Corey MacPherson, trainer Ralph Sweet and owners John and David Sweet of O'Leary. The six-year-old son of Artistic Fella came in from the Ontario circuit at the start of the 2018 Summer meet on Prince Edward Island, remaining winless so far on the East Coast while showing miles in 1:57 and change. Heart And Soul gets rail control in the featured pace while shifting into the stable of Walter Cheverie for this start for owner Riley Farms Ltd., of Summerside.
Race analyst Bo Ford opts to head in another direction and places his bets on post 6 starter Machinthesand with Ken Murphy in the bike for trainer Hughie Murphy.
"I really like this horse coming in off a layoff," Ford said. "Machinthesand looked fresh in his qualifier and no doubt there will be no chance to get fractions backed down with this guy pressuring the whole mile."
Other top class entrants include Mando Fun (Dale Spence), Old Buck (Jason Hughes) and J Rs Hurricane (Adam Merner).
The back-up pace fields seven entrants in race nine of the program for a $1,900 purse. Allstar Seelster is the early favourite leaving from post 1 for the combination of driver Norris Rogers and owner-trainer Ed Harvey of Tyne Valley. Offshore Cowboy makes his return to racing from post 7 in the event after a profitable three-year-old season was cut short in 2016 for trainer Donald Milligan due to injury. With 20 months since his last start, Offshore Cowboy will reunite with driver Hughes for the start of his five-year-old campaign. Other top entries include Cyrax (Spence) and Pictonian Storm (Austin Sorrie).
For entries, click the following link: Monday Entries - Red Shores Summerside.
(with files from Red Shores)