P.E.I.’s biggest sporting event goes Saturday night

Tignish native showing no signs of slowing down on the baseball field

It is the biggest sporting event on P.E.I., and the neat thing about the Gold Cup and Saucer race is that we get to see it every year.

The 60th running of this great standardbred race goes to post just before midnight on Saturday in front of a live audience expected to be about 15,000 and thousands more across the Island, and beyond, watching on the Internet.

The big race is the signature event of Old Home Week in Charlottetown and marks the end of one of the most – if not the most popular – tourist attractions annually in our province.

Thousands visit our capital city for Old Home Week and have done so for decades. History tells us that, as far back as 1930, Old Home Week was attended by as many as 15,000 people.

Harness racing, as it did then, still attracts a great number of those visitors and looking at this week’s wagers, they are betting very well. Through the first nine programs of racing, the total live wager was just over $672,000, which is an average of over $69,000 per race card from last Thursday through to Wednesday. That will increase significantly over the final three days.

As far as the big night goes, $123,700 in purse money is up for grabs for the 14 races, including a $60,000 purse for the Gold Cup and Saucer.

A lot of Islanders will be pulling for Trial 1 winner Midway Island to win the race as the sentimental favourite. The trainer for this horse is Rachel Andrew, the daughter of the late Brian Andrew.

He was the owner of Meridian Farms and passed away in December.

Andrew had a lifetime in harness racing and was a huge supporter of the sport. It would be quite a thrill to win with Midway Island for Rachel, who hopes that the tough No. 7 post position will become her Lucky 7.

DID YOU KNOW?

Did you know that Canadian history was made during Old Home Week in 1946?

That was the year that Canada’s first mobile starting gate was introduced.

Then just one year later, in 1947, Photo Finish Technology and racing under the lights began in time for Old Home Week.

BASEBALL

Other than minor baseball, there is not a trace of any level of baseball played on P.E.I. west of Charlottetown. The good thing is, at least, there is the Kings County Baseball League (KCBL), which has been going since the early 1960s.

A look through the KCBL shows that a number of players from Prince County are playing on one of the six teams. Grant Grady, Brady Arsenault and Parker Ronahan all play with the Stratford Athletics while Matt Barlow, Parker Gallant and Spencer Montgomery also play in the league.

The ageless Scott Harper continues to put up impressive numbers with the Morrell Chevies. The Tignish native led the league in hitting last year with an impressive .538 average and also led the league with on-base percentage. He sits in second place in league hitting this year with a .462 average at last look.

That trails only Logan Gallant, who also plays with the Charlottetown Islanders in the New Brunswick Senior Baseball League. Gallant is being picked up by Fredericton for the Canadian senior nationals, hosted this year by the Chatham Ironmen.

Harper was always a terrific ballplayer and when he played with the Tignish Aces in the Charlie Ryan Baseball League in the early 1990s, he was one of the league’s best players. He obviously is one of the KCBL’s top players and age has certainly not slowed Harper down. I am only guessing that Harper must be approaching, or be right around, age 50.

Hockey fans will also remember Harper as a terrific player when he played junior A with the Charlottetown Abbies and senior with the Tignish Aces.

Good for Scott Harper that he can still play the great game of baseball – and play it very well.

BANTAM BALL

I watched some of the Summerside bantam baseball tournament at Queen Elizabeth Park last weekend.

The Eastern Express won the championship and proved that anything can happen in a ball game. Winners of only one league game to that point, the Express played great and beat some of the best teams from around the Maritimes.

One observation that stood out to me was the pitch calling from the bench. These are bantamaged kids who are throwing different pitches. I guess that is fine to put that extra strain on throwing arms to throw a curveball or whatever.

I wonder how much the catcher is learning when, after every pitch, he turns to his bench to see what the coach wants him to relay to the pitcher to throw next. I think it is a bit much at this level and there is such a thing as over-coaching. They do it in the majors and maybe some of these coaches are watching a little too much TV.

FLASHBACK

It was 25 years ago in 1994 that the 35th anniversary running of the Gold Cup and Saucer took place, featuring a purse of $20,000.

Nuclear Flash with Mike Saftic driving won the race in a time of 1:55:3.

Have a great week!