Sire Stakes headlines Cal Expo card

The first California Sire Stakes of the season for the 3-year-old pacing males is the main harness racing attraction Friday night at Cal Expo with a field of eight vying in the $20,000 contest.

Watch and Wager LLC will present 10 races Friday night with first post set for 6:45 p.m. The co-features are an Open Pace headed by Alilthundadownunda and a Filly-Mare Open Pace featuring Graceful Horizon.

The Minnesota Kid looms a major player in the Sire Stakes as the son of Karpathian Kid will be making his seasonal debut for owner Stephanie Ann Longo, trainer Jose Castillo and pilot Luke Plano.

He showed plenty of potential last summer at Running Aces, winning three of his five starts and has a couple of solid qualifiers under his belt to prepare for this assignment.

Blazin For Life is another who displayed promise as a 2-year-old in Minnesota and scored a solid victory over this course two weeks ago for owners Alan and Cheryl Sandbulte and trainer Nick Roland.

That barn will also be represented by Set The Pacing Racing LLC’s JK Cache Meoutside, who just missed in his local debut last week to another major player in Dougs Moonshine, who goes about his business for owner/breeders Rick Bertrand, Doug Flores and Amy Fichtner, with Bertrand training.

Completing the field are Tutto Bene, Night Train Lane, Yerderntootin and Ain’t No Uppity Man.

Tutto Bene getting the thumbs up

Tutto Bene translates to “everything’s Ok” in English, and that’s exactly how Jessie Pacheco feels about his pacer going into this week’s first round of Sire Stakes for the 3-year-olds.

A homebred son of Karpathian King who carries the banner of Ronald Rettig-Zucchi, he won three of his seven starts last year, including a 1:57 tour over the five-eighths Running Aces oval.

Following a pair of qualifiers here, he showed good speed in his seasonal debut last week and is now nice and tight for this richer assignment.

“He’s a stud, but for the most part he’s pretty gentle,” Pacheco noted. “He was a quick learner and has a very good attitude. He does whatever you ask him.

“I broke him and then my dad had him in Minnesota last year. He raced against the best 2-year-olds there and did pretty well.”

Jessie notes that it was the plan along to get a couple of qualifiers into Tutto Bene and then a race before diving into the stakes schedule at this meet.

“I wasn’t thinking about leaving with him last week, but nobody was going and I let him roll. He got a real nice tightener from that mile and I’m looking forward to seeing what he can do in these stakes races.”

For complete race entries, click here: US Trotting entries.

by Mark Ratzky, for Cal Expo Harness