Saturday’s (July 31) Adios Day card at The Meadows is rich with wagering opportunities, offering five pool guarantees worth a total of $90,000.
Perhaps most alluring is the $40,000 Super Hi-5 guarantee for the $375,000 Adios final, which goes as race 15. While the jackpot usually is paid only if there is a unique winning ticket, Saturday’s Super Hi-5 features a mandatory payout, meaning all winning ticket-holders will share in the spoils.
Other guarantees include:
• $20,000 for the Adios Pick-4 (race 12);
• $10,000 for the Adios Pick-5 (race 11);
• $10,000 for the Middle Pick-5 (race 6);
• $10,000 for the Middle Pick-4 (race 7).
The Adios anchors a blockbuster program that includes five other stakes: the $106,745 Quinton Patterson Adioo Volo for three-year-old pacing fillies; a pair of Arden Downs Grand Circuit events for freshman pacers, and a $143,132 Pennsylvania Sire Stakes and a $40,000 Pennsylvania Stallion Series event, both for three-year-old trotting fillies.
This Adios Season, The Meadows is honouring seven horsemen and other contributors who have helped make the track successful — today and throughout its history. Saturday’s card includes races named for three of those honourees: Richard “Dickie” Stillings; Pennsylvania Rep. George Dunbar, and Tom Quinn.
Stillings (race 6) formed “Team Spur” with owner-breeder Roy D. Davis (and sometimes Stillings’ brother, trainer Buddy Stillings). Team Spur copped victories in the sport’s biggest races, including the Little Brown Jug, the Adios, the Breeders Crown, the Cane Pace and the Yonkers Trot. In 2013, Dick Stillings was inducted into the Harness Racing Hall of Fame.
Dunbar (race 11) has represented the 56th Legislative District in Westmoreland County since 2010. For his support for the commonwealth’s racing industries and employees, he was named “Legislator of the Year” by The Meadows and the Meadows Standardbred Owners Association (MSOA).
Quinn (race 5) was a lifelong harness racing fan who rarely missed a card at The Meadows, where he was particularly fond of betting on horses from the stables of Doug Snyder and Dane Snyder. His affection for the game grew when his daughter, Kathleen Quinn Hodel, became a Standardbred owner. A native of Pittsburgh’s West End, the Korean War veteran died last year at 91.
Saturday’s card gets underway at the special post time of noon.
(Meadows Standardbred Owners Association)