A field of eight pacers will assemble for the Thursday evening feature at Red Shores Racetrack and Casino at the Charlottetown Driving Park and it promises to be a lively opening quarter.
First race post time is 7 p.m. for the 12-dash program.
Windemere Eric is the classifier’s choice in the race 11 feature with a $1,700 purse. Gary Chappell trains, drives and owns the six-year-old son of Articulator and will leave from the outer post seven with plenty of early speed promised to his inside. The hard-leaving Minor Wisdom has post six for driver Brad Smith and owner-trainer Kristina McCourt of Summerside fresh off of a fourth-place finish in 1:57 where she cut opening fractions of :27.4 and :56.4 in Summerside. Leading Camdidate has rail control with Ken Murphy in the bike for owner-trainer Jeff Holmes of Orwell, while Beckenbauer is second choice from post five with Ryan Perrot subbing in for regular driver Jason Hughes, who is competing in stakes races in Truro Thursday.
Race analyst Les MacIsaac gives the nod to Leading Camdidate in the feature event.
“A good late kick and rail control can be a dangerous combination and that’s just what this guy has so we’ll treat him as the one to beat,” MacIsaac said of Leading Camdidate.
Other entries include Prince Adam (Mark McKinnon), Sinners In Heaven (Terry Gallant), Whitesand Artist (Neil Bambrick) and Balanchine (Ron Matheson).
Two trot classes populate the evening program in races three and five.
The race three trot has the veteran trotter Neal favoured from post seven with co-owner and trainer Brian Andrew in the bike for co-owner William Andrew of Calgary. The seven-year-old son of Credit Winner drops out of the Open Trot and will look to capitalize on his backclass to land in the winner’s circle and bolster his $280,883 in lifetime earnings. Other top choices in the $1,350 affair include Hopedale Dora (Joey Pineau) and Kims Pjs (Lenny Myers).
Race five has a $1,550 purse on the line with Majian Dilion getting the faith of the classifier and drawing post one for trainer-driver Jim Ripley and owner Marylea Ripley of Amherst, N.S. JK Queen (Doug MacGregor) and Money Show (Brian Andrew) are the next choices.
To view Thursday's harness racing entries, click on the following link: Thursday Entries - Charlottetown Driving Park.
(Red Shores)