Illinois' top sophomore pacers will all be in action on Friday evening at Maywood Park, as a field of eight state-conceived and foaled fillies will square off in the featured $112,000 final of the Filly Maywood Pace.
Thirteen of the lasses' male counterparts will meet in a pair of $10,000 Maywood Pace eliminations. The top five finishers will return next week to battle for a $100,000 (est.) jackpot.
Carded as Race 9 on the 14-dash program, Friday's featured Filly Maywood Pace figures to be a heated affair from start to finish.
Fox Valley Hermia, who captured one of last week’s elimination’s in wire-to-wire fashion for driver-trainer Ronnie Gillespie has drawn the inside post and thus has been accorded the 5-2 favouritism on the morning line. The chestnut daughter of Yankee Skyscaper has won 11 of her 12 career starts for owners Ron Phillips and Jesse Ferge.
Sleazy Does It finished just a neck behind Fox Valley Hermia last week and she has been installed as a close second choice at 3-1 by the line maker at Maywood Park. The Nelson Willis-trained miss has been a model of consistency throughout her first two seasons hitting the ticket in 14 of her 18 starts. Owned by the Engel Stable LLC, this daughter of Sagebrush is the leading money earner in the field with a bankroll of nearly $119,000.
Rounding out the field are Moment Of Magic, Through My Eyes, Kendyl, Hostess Lisa, Party Hangover and Melodie Hotspur, who pulled off a shocking upset in the other elimination last week.
A field of six will go postward in the first Maywood Pace elimination which has been carded as the fifth race on the card. The top four will move on to next week’s plush final.
Among the top contenders in this elimination are multiple stake winner Uncle Smoothie and last season’s top two-year-old Crime Of Passion, who captured the $50,800 Cardinal Stakes in his last race at Balmoral Park.
The second elimination goes as race seven and this race features Als Hammered, a multiple stakes winner who is fresh off a score in 1:52.1 at Balmoral Park and NJs Big Deal, who was the runner-up in the Cardinal and is already a stakes winner at Maywood Park in 2012.
(Maywood)