When the three-year-old colt and gelding trotters go postward Friday (August 1) at Batavia Downs to chase their cut of the $116,000 up for grabs in the two divisions of the New York Sire Stakes, the track record for the division is in danger of falling and its demise could come at the hooves of Gural Hanover.
Since arriving at the Ron Burke Stable, Gural Hanover has been almost perfect; stringing four consecutive victories most recently. Included in those wins were an all-age track record of 1:56.1 at Buffalo Raceway and an all-age track record of 1:55.2 at Monticello Raceway. This week he is singularly focused on Batavia Downs.
The track handicapper has installed the gelded son of Crazed as the 1-5 morning line choice. There will be win and exacta betting only, due to the short field of five. And 1-5 might be a windfall for bettors considering Gural Hanover is the NYSS point leader in his class. He will have leading NYSS driver Jim Morrill Jr. navigating once again.
With his front-end style, current form and penchant for half-mile tracks, Gural Hanover definitely has the ability to erase the 1:54.3 track mark, which was set by Archangel in 2012.
Whereas this division looks to have an overwhelming favourite, the first division has the makings of a real solid horse race.
Flyhawk El Durado, Cash Me Out and Zoey De Vie are as even a group of trotters that could be put together in a race. All three have beaten each other at some point this year and the group looks resigned to banging heads for the remainder of the season.
Flyhawk El Durado (Conway Hall-El Paso Girl) was the NYSS two-year-old trotting colt champion in 2013. He was six out of nine last year and finished his campaign in strong fashion. Since starting back this year for trainer Mark Ford, he faced some stiff Grand Circuit competition early. He finished third behind 2014 Hambletonian starter Trixton in the Simpson Stakes at the Meadowlands Racetrack in May. In this series so far he has two wins, a second and two thirds and is coming off the best last outing (a 1:55.3 win at Yonkers Raceway) of anyone in this race.
With the exception of an early season break at Saratoga Raceway, the Cheryl McGivern-trained Cash Me Out (Cash Hall-China Victory) has been no worse than second all year. He has posted four wins and five seconds in 10 starts. He is the second-richest starter in the field with $130,575 on his card this year, and just finished second to Gural Hanover last week. Michael McGivern will be at the helm once again.
Zoey De Vie (Conway Hall-Pauls Wink) made his victorious stakes debut this year in the Excelsior series before stepping up to the top level in June. Since then he has a win and three seconds in four NYSS starts. Last week he sat on the back of Flyhawk El Durado the entire mile at Yonkers, but couldn’t get by him in the lane. However, the trainer/driver duo of Heidi Rohr and Jim Morrill Jr. will look to avenge that defeat Friday.
The talented trotting trio of Cash Me Out (4-5), Flyhawk El Durado (3-1) and Zoey De Vie (8-5) is currently ranked second, third and fourth, respectively, on the NYSS leaderboard.
The undercard features two divisions of the $25,500 Excelsior Series ‘A’ and two divisions of the $13,400 Excelsior Series ‘B’ series races.
Post time for the 12-race card is 6:35 p.m.
(Batavia)