Boxing Day preview for Charlottetown

CHARLOTTETOWN, PE – When Sock It Away puts his nose on the starting gate it is usually followed by a trip to the winner’s circle and the champion harness racing pacer will look for the trend to continue in the Boxing Day Pace on Sunday (Dec. 26) at Red Shores Racetrack and Casino at the Charlottetown Driving Park.

The 13-dash Boxing Day presentation starts off at 12:30 P.M., with the top class lining up behind the Metro Home Building Centre starting gate in race 12.

The surefire favourite in that dash is Sock It Away after his December record performance of 1:54.4 last week for owner Reg MacPherson of Stratford and trainer Kevin MacLean. The champion son of Pang Shui has rail control in the $3,400 Boxing Day Pace with Marc Campbell getting the catch driving call from post 1.

Sock It Away looks to expand on his excellent record of 50 trips behind the starting gate and just 17 of those where he failed to find the wire first and the other 33 resulting in trips to the winner’s circle.

The richest Atlantic bred pacer of all-time, The Rev, leaves from post 2 with Gilles Barrieau making his return to the race bike behind his trainee after the multiple O’Brien Award winning horseman was injured in a racing accident in October.

Moonwriter (Jason Hughes) has post 3, with Ladylike (David Dowling) leaving from post 4, Mc Pat (Adam Merner) with post 5 and Bugsy Maguire (Dale Spence) with post 6.

Peter MacPhee sees Sock It Away as the inevitable favourite in the Post Time Picks. “It’s safe to say that Sock It Away is back and that was an eye-popping win last time out. Now he gets the rail and Campbell hops up so we’re putting him back on top and so should you.”

The $2,500 afternoon finale has Better Than Cash selected to overcome post 6 with Ambyr Campbell in the driver’s seat of the son of Betterthancheddar that she owns and trains. A winner of four races in 2021, Better Than Cash shows finishing on-the-board right down his program page but will have lots of company on his quest for the winner’s circle.

His top contenders are slated to be Legendary Ron (Hughes) and Selkirk Echo (Corey MacPherson). Catch all the action live at the track or tune into the worldwide Race Day broadcast at Redshores.ca. Live streaming is also available at the Red Shores Youtube page and online wagering can be found at HPIBet.com.

by Nicholas Oakes, for Red Shores