California Sire Stakes action at Cal Expo

A pair of $20,000 Sire Stakes for the 4-year-olds highlight the Sunday (April 9) Cal Expo Harness program, with Divine Art and Give Me This Dance renewing their harness racing rivalry among the distaffers while Worthy Opponent and JP Jetty are the major players in the male division.

Watch and Wager LLC will present 11 races Sunday with first post set for 5 p.m.

Divine Art (Outrageous Art) is a 4-year-old mare who is owned, trained and driven by Gerry Longo and is eyeing her third straight stakes trophy at this meeting.

She came into this stand with a 12-race winning streak in tow and added five more tallies before being upset by arch-rival Give Me This Dance in the first Sire Stakes meeting on February 19.

Since that setback, Divine Art has captured four of her five trips to the post, including a trio of stakes decisions. In last week’s outing, she carved out all the pace and fought back to prevail by a neck over a first-over Give Me The Dance.

Worthy Opponent (Hi Ho Silverheel’s) comes into this assignment having posed for pictures following 10 of his 21 lifetime appearances for owner/breeder Wayne Knittel and trainer Bob Johnson. Luke Plano will guide again.

Worthy Opponent earned multiple stakes trophies last year but was picking up his first Sire Stakes win this season when he proved a punctual 1-2 favorite in last week’s top dance of the division.

Plano was able to get away some very moderate fractions, then came a :57 flat back half to get the job done by three-quarters of a length over JP Jetty

X’s, Worthy Opponent have Johnson smiling

Bob Johnson was posing for pictures with two of the best in the barn last week as Allymx’sliventexas (Hi Ho Silverheels) dead-headed in a division of Open Pace and Worthy Opponent (Hi Ho Silverheels) added another stakes trophy to his resume.

Allmyx’sliventexas and Worthy Opponent race for Wayne Knittel, who bred both performers with his late brother Rod. Allmyx’sliventexas won for the 60th time in his career while Worthy Opponent has clicked in 10 of his 21 starts, with multiple stakes scores.

“They’re both by Hi Ho Silverheel’s, but they’re not the same,” Johnson noted. “Allmyx’sliventntexas is just as tough as they come, and he would certainly rank right there with the best horses I’ve ever had.

“He can get it done from any position. He’s tough on the lead, he’s very dangerous when he’s tracking, and he can come with a real nice finish if that’s the way the race comes up. He may have lost a step at age 10, but he still loves it out there.

“As far as Worthy Opponent goes, he’s got a lot of ability, but he prefers to come from off the pace and doesn’t really like a fight up front. He won last week on the lead, but he got away with a slow half.”

The goal for Worthy Opponent is take down the $50,000 Sire Stakes Championship at the end of the month, and right now he looks as solid as anyone in the division off his most recent miles.

After this stand, Johnson related that Allmyx’sliventexas will get the summer off while Worthy Opponent will be among his troops headed to Minnesota for the Running Aces meet.

For complete Sunday race entries, click here.

by Mark Ratzky, for Cal Expo Harness