Meadowlands Pace winner Courtly Choice will be invading Yonkers Raceway for the first time this Tuesday night (Aug. 28), as he is set to contest the first of two $86,750 divisions of the New York Sire Stakes Armand Palatucci Pace for three-year-old colts and geldings.
Post time for the 10-race card will be at 6:50 p.m. The Palatucci splits have been carded as Race 7 and 8. Courtly Choice is set to contest the first division, which will head to post at approximately 8:50 p.m.
Courtly Choice has drawn Post 6 and David Miller is scheduled to be in the race bike once again. The Art Major colt is co-owned (as part of Mac and Heim Stables) by trainer Blake Macintosh, Daniel Plouffe, Hutt Racing and Touch Stone Farms.
For the season, Courtly Choice has recorded eight wins from 11 starts ($623,573), and he will enter his Tuesday assignment off of a down-the-road win in the $272,025 final of the Empire Breeders at Tioga Downs (1:48.3). His 1:47.1 life’s mark was recorded in the $701,830 final of the Meadowlands Pace last month.
Tuesday will mark just his second New York Sire Stakes appearance of the season, as he previously excelled in a Memorial Day dash at Vernon Downs that he won in 1:48.4. Courtly Choice has only made one other ‘small-track’ start (he tasted victory in last season’s $50,000 consolation of the NYSS at Monticello Raceway).
If Courtly Choice gets a challenge, it’s probably going to come from Heavenly Sounds (Jim Mahon Jr., Post 3). The Rock N Roll Heaven colt, trained by Bruce Saunders for M&M Harness Racing, has won six races and more than $137,000 this season. He was a snappy sire stakes winner at Yonkers (1:52.4) late last month.
Tuesday night’s second and final group will includes MacIntosh’s Rootin Tootin (Mark MacDonald, Post 7), himself a six-figure performer this season ($102,307).
Jersey Jim (Jordan Stratton, Post 2) has not raced back to his frosh sire stakes championship form, while Ghost Dance (Scott Zeron, Post 3), Keystone Tenacious (Marohn Jr., Post 4) and Ideal Feeling (Jason Bartlett, Post 8) were all finalists in the Empire Breeders Classic.
(Yonkers Raceway)
The story creates a
The story creates a rhetorical question...
Why cannot we name our own O.S.S. after well know people / horses similar to this event in NY.
The 'A - Gold" races after our noteworthy humans, and the GR's after accomplished horses, as an example??