Batavia Downs will kick off its 2014 live racing season tonight (Wednesday, July 23), and the best of the resident distaff congregation will take the main stage. Both of the feature races on the card will focus on the best local mares from both gaits.
The evening’s first race is a $7,500 Mares Open Trot that will feature a field of seven.
The 2-1 morning line favorite is Fiorentina. The five-year-old Angus Hall mare has been facing the boys each week in Open company at the recently concluded Buffalo Raceway meet. She has been no worse than third in her four most recent starts. However, you have to go back to February 28 to find the last time she has won a race. That said, competing within her peer group tonight will provide some welcomed class relief for this outing.
Fiorentina, who is conditioned by Batavia’s defending training champion, John Mungillo, has three wins in 12 starts this season with a mark of 1:58.3 taken at Buffalo. She drew Post 2 and has Truman Gale in the bike.
Stormont O My has the rail and a 3-1 second choice designation on the morning line. The 10-year-old has been racing mostly in claiming races this year, and won her last start handily in 1:59.4 with a $12,500 price tag. She has faced Open-class company twice at Buffalo and faced Fiorentina both times. On April 18, Stormont O My was second, where she finished ahead of Fiorentina, who was third. On January 23, Stormont O My was also second, only behind Fiorentina, who won that race.
Stormont O My is trained by Darrin Monti and is co-owned and driven by Drew Monti. She has four wins in 15 starts this year with her best winning effort of 2014 coming just last week.
In the night’s featured sixth race, seven starters will line up in the Mares Open Pace to compete for the winner’s share of $9,500.
Bazooka Terror is the 5-2 morning line favourite. She hails from the barn of local newcomer Leonard Segall. The five-year-old daughter of Western Terror has been competing most recently at Scarborough Downs in Maine and had a 1:56.2 win in the top mares class there three starts ago. After having finished second at that level once again, she was dropped to a lower condition where she dominated the field and registered a 1:54.2, nine-length victory over the half-mile track. She took her lifetime mark of 1:52.1 at Tioga Downs on June 6 of this year and has registered three wins in her last five starts.
Bazooka Terror has been overcoming outside posts in seven of her last eight starts and will receive some inside relief tonight from Post 3. She also gets the services of defending Batavia Downs’ dash-winning driver Shawn McDonough.
Her main rival in the race is the 3-1 second choice, Case Solved. The mare is a recent addition to the Adam Short stable and has been impressive locally since shipping in from Hoosier Park in Indiana. After winning her initial start at Buffalo for her new connections in an uncontested 1:54.2 wire-to-wire romp, Case Solved moved into the mares Open ranks and finished a narrowly-beaten second two consecutive times. Driver Ray Fisher Jr. will pick up the lines once again and look to allay those back-to-back defeats this week.
Post time for the 12-race card is 6:35 p.m. Opening night will also feature two giveaways for the fans on hand. Free Batavia Downs racing programs and magnetic schedules with be distributed to all in attendance, as long as supplies last.
(Batavia)