Nick’s Picks
Live harness racing action turns up a notch this week with programs on Thursday and Saturday at Red Shores at the Charlottetown Driving Park with racing in Prince County on the horizon.
The Saturday evening feature is the $2,500 preferred pace carded as Race 9 at the capital oval with a 6 p.m. first race post time. Czar Seelster and Euchred have been trading blows at this early point in the season with whomever controls the front also seeming to control the winner’s circle. Euchred gets rail control this week for driver Gilles Barrieau and trainer Terry Gallant while Czar Seelster is shouldered with Post 6 for driver Kenny Arsenault and trainer Todd Weatherbee.
Victoria Day also creeps nearer as the May 21 holiday will serve as opening day of the Red Shores at the Summerside Raceway season.
P.E.I. Scene
My condolences to the family of Linda Ford, who passed away recently. The 57-year-old Charlottetown resident was a lifelong fan and supporter of harness racing, passing her love of the sport down to her son Bo, a trainer on the Island circuit. Ford’s racing roots run deep with brothers Lenny, David, Wade and Arnold Myers all active horse people. Ford’s husband, Evan, is also a trainerdriver.
Island racing also had some losses in the four-legged category with aged campaigner Kapyong reportedly passing this week. The veteran pacer was just shy of his 34th birthday after being retired more than 23 years ago in December 1994. Owned by the late Bill Henderson, the son of Capri Mir was a 74-time winner most noted for coming out of the bottom claiming ranks to rise to racing in the Gold Cup and Saucer. Saturday at 6 p.m. at Red Shores at the Charlottetown Driving Park:
Race 1 – Inspector Murdoch Race 2 – Three Truths
Race 3 – Twin B Shadow Race 4 – Woodmere Chella Race 5 – Silverhill Spike Race 6 – Cartoon Daddy Race 7 – Tangled Mind
Race 8 – Junebugs Baby Race 9 – Euchred
Race 10 – Jetta Flys
A Maritime champion also left us recently after two-time, aged-pacing mare final winner Howmacs Dragon died from complications foaling. The 16-year-old daughter of Dragon Again was campaigned by Earl Smith out of Charlottetown for her tremendous three-year-old season in 2005 where she went 16-for-21 on the East Coast while beating the top mares in the region in between her threeyear-old stakes. She went on to win the Robert Banks aged pacing mares final in 2006 for Smith and captured the same event in 2008, then called the Erwin Andrew Memorial stake, for the combination of trainer Neil Bambrick and driver Marc Campbell.
Who’s Hot
The viability of small stables has always been what makes harness racing unique to smaller jurisdictions like Prince Edward Island and the Todd Walsh stable is a perfect example.
The three-horse strong stable has had a solid start to the 2018 season with trainer Walsh also in the race bike. Bad Silver and What A Babe have both recorded wins in the first two weeks of racing that mixes in with January’s success to give Walsh a sparkling .425 training average.
This isn’t the first bout of luck for the Charlottetown resident as he was the leading trainer in Atlantic Canada for nearly four months during the 2011 season after putting together a solid string in January of that year.