WInning Weekends Underway at Charlottetown & Summerside
Harness Racing PEI Sports
By Lee Drake
Charlottetown, PE – The 2009 race season is into the homestretch with the fall/winter meet underway Saturday at Red Shores Racetrack & Casino at Charlottetown Driving Park. Post time is 1pm while Red Shores at Summerside Raceway presents a 14- dash card on Sunday beginning at 1pm.
The campaign, dubbed Winning Weekends, offers Pick 6 Jackpots, new promotions and even winning streaks when Island Jazzystar and driver Corey MacPherson go for their third win in a row when they tackle the top class Sunday at Summerside and Yankee Sun, who won five in a row, tries to get back on his winning form from post 5 in the $2,200 feature Saturday at Charlottetown.
The eight-year-old pacer, with lifetime earnings approaching $103,000, just wasn’t himself in his last race and finished out of the money. Brian MacPhee gets the call to drive this week because Kenny Arsenault is aboard his other trainee CL Eighty in this division. It should be a great match-up with front- runners like Fleet Officer (Marc Campbell) and Stars Example (Terry Gallant) ready to bust the gate from inside posts. Olivia Hall, last week’s winner, has drawn post 2 for driver Ron Matheson and co-owner Tom Clark, Charlottetown, with heavyweights like Kingofthecastle, BJ Cruiser and Rymar Chief completing the field.
Other highlights on the card has Pans O Silver listed as the morning line favorite in the back-up class in race 13, Camscaper gets top billing in the Lloyd Ramsey Memorial and Chelemark Adios is the 5-2 choice in the Martina Doyle Pace in race 8.
Island Jazzystar, owned by Mitchell Tierney, Cornwall, is going for his third win in a row when he takes on the top class Sunday at the Summerside Raceway. One of the region’s youngest driving stars, Corey MacPherson, is back in the bike. The Vernon River resident has assembled an impressive season with 24 wins, 26 seconds and 19 third place finishes from 160 starts. They’ll need their top performance when they meet veterans such as Porthill Alf, trained by Duane MacEachern and Frank Banks’ Paphos off the rail for trainer Elton Miller. The field includes two mainland invaders Real Bond, owned by the Ultimate Stable, Dieppe, NB and Slim N Sleep trained by Rosaire Barrieau for Maurice Allain, Memoramcook, N.B. Pan Cushion, a new purchase for Jordan Hicken, Montague, Smart Barney from the Walter Simmons stable, Summerside along with Life Savior for trainer Philip Doucette and driver Kevin MacMillan, O’Leary can also mount serious threats from their mid-pack posts.
Woodmere Quickpeek drew the rail in the $1,600 event while stakes performers Elm Grove Dallas, trained by Vance Cameron, and Urge to Win, with Brian Andrew in the bike, meet in the afternoon finale.