Ring In The New Year At Red Shores

Strident Hanover has the form and the post position to end 2016 with a bang in the final race Saturday night during New Year’s Eve action at Red Shores at the Charlottetown Driving Park.

The New Year’s Eve pace is pegged as race 14 on the card kicking off at 6:30 P.M. with Strident Hanover seeing a shake up in the driver’s seat as trainer Kuri White elects to step off in favour of driver Corey MacPherson. Emily MacPhee of Charlottetown owns Strident Hanover and race analyst Les MacIsaac sees him as the one to close out another successful year at Red Shores.

“Strident Hanover steps up slightly after back-to-back seconds but he should benefit from a spot on the pylons again and has Corey at the controls,” MacIsaac said. “He is quite possibly the one to beat.”

Cambest Kisser is the morning line choice in the $1,400 event for trainer-driver Jason Hughes and owner Donald MacRae of Vernon Bridge. Other top entries include Fly With Max (Marc Campbell) and Nashurallability (Don MacNeill).

The evening feature lines up in race 13 with Drivingthedragon N assigned to post seven in the field of as many with ‘The Blue Knight’ driving for owner MacRae. Other entries include Doing Some Damage (Brian MacPhee), Woodmere Articblue (Campbell), Rash B Havior (Gary Chappell), Smiley Bayama (Adam Merner), Forever Paradise (MacPherson) and Eagle Jolt (Ryan Desroche).

Saturday night is the final card for the ‘King’ of Red Shores Charlottetown, Marc Campbell to pad his win total for the 2016 season. Campbell goes into the card with 141 wins on the season, smashing his previous best of 130 victories during 2012. He has 11 drives on the program including a drive in the All The Weapons Retirement Pace in Race 3. Veteran pacer All The Weapons will turn 15 on Jan. 1, when all North American Standardbreds have their official registry birthday, disqualifying him from pari-mutuel competition.

A winner of the $60,000 Sobey’s Gold Cup and Saucer in 2009, All The Weapons will retire with $323,645 in purse earnings, 38 wins and a 1:51 mark taken over Woodbine Racetrack in Ontario. Allan (Apps) McGuigan of Charlottetown currently owns and trains All The Weapons.

The program will play main stage during Red Shores’ New Year’s Eve party featuring fast-paced action, prizes and cash draws where race customers can tag their tickets in the Wild Horses promotion with $100 jackpots on every race.

Red Shores will also provide a shuttle service from the Park St. parking lot to the Red Shores main entrance every 15 minutes beginning at 5:30 p.m.

Charlottetown is one of four Canadian tracks racing on New Year's Eve, with the I Love Canadian Harness Racing Fan Club offering an online handicapping contest to close out the 2016 harness racing season.

(with files from Red Shores)