Colt trotters to battle in $173,000 NYSS at Yonkers

YONKERS, NY, Thursday, July 26, 2018-Not every good 3-year-old trotter finds his (or her) way into the Hambletonian.

There's a pretty fair Yonkers Raceway group gathering Friday night (July 27th) in the $173,500 New York Sire Stakes Dick McGuire Trot for the sophomore colts and geldings.

Post time for the dozen-race card s 6:50 PM, with the pair of $86,750 sire stakes events-named for the former New York Knickerbocker standout, Hall of Famer and avid horseplayer-going as races 7 and 8.

The opening division includes Helpisontheway (Brian Sears, post 3), who held sway in last weekend's $61,900 boys' division of the Tompkins Memorial at the Meadowlands.

The son of Chapter Seven is thrice a winner in seven seasonal starts, including a statebred win at Tioga (life-best 1:52.2. Linda Toscano trains for Camelot and Bays Stables & Little E LLC.

Winning Shadows (Mike Simons, post 2) was a fresh-Lasix, 12-1 upsetter at Monticello in his last start. The Credit Winner gelding, trained by Jake Huff for co-owners Our Horse Cents and J&T Silva Stables, has won three of his eight seasonal starts.

Clive Bigsby (Mark MacDonald, post 7) was runner-up (to Six Pack) in last season's $225,000 frosh final, while Tito (Brent Holland, post 5) is trying to regain some of 2017's nearly-$240,000 form.

Purpose Blue Chip (Dan Daley, post 8) has a resume highlighted by sire stakes wins at Monticello and Buffalo.

Friday night's second and final division sees The Veteran (Jordan Stratton, post 2) as arguably the horse to beat. The Muscle Mass colt, co-owned by (trainer) George Ducharme, Steven Michaels, W J Donovan and Jim Winske, has been the odds-on choice in his last four tries (two sires, two overnights). He settled for second (to Winning Shadows) at Monti in his latest and is 4-for-7 this season.

Perlucky (Trond Smedshammer, post 5) enters off a 15-1 Catskills NYSS win, his first of in a half-dozen '18i tries. Smedshammer also trains the son of Lucky Chuck for Purple Haze Stables.

Don (Jason Bartlett, post 7) has sire stakes wins at Vernon (life-best 1:54.3) and Buffalo.

New York Sire Stakes continue here Monday night (July 30th) with the $172,000 Bruce Hamilton Pace (3-year-old colts/geldings).

by Frank Drucker, for Yonkers Raceway