Sire Stakes, Open Trot highlight Cal Expo cards

A $20,000 California Sire Stakes for the 4-year-old harness racing males headed by Celebrity Status (Vlos) and an Open Trot featuring Valottalove (Love You) get the marquee treatment at Cal Expo Saturday evening.

Watch and Wager LLC will conduct 11 races and first post is 6:40 p.m.

Celebrity Status is a homebred son of Vlos who races for Set The Pacing LLC and is trained and driven by Nick Roland.

He comes into this week’s assignment riding a three-race winning streak, which began in the most recent Sire Stakes for the division on March 29 and was able to work out a perfect pocket trip enroute to the score.

Celebrity Status has added two conditioned victories to his resume, with last week’s coast-to-coast tally for Roland resulting in a 1:53 3/5 lifetime mark.

Taking him on are Brog Hug with Mooney Svendsen; Rocklikeahurricane, James Kennedy; Slyvester with Chip Lackey and Alien Art Form for Ryan Grundy.

Valottalove will be eyeing a hat trick this weekend after taking the Gary Budahn and an Open two weeks ago.

The 6-year-old son of Love You is owned, trained and driven by John MacDonald and leaves from the outside slot in the field of five.

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

Semicolon gets ready for deeper waters

Semicolon is holding a hot hand at the moment, having rattled off four wins from his last five starts for owner Donald Laufenberg and trainer Bob Johnson.

Not surprisingly, the 4-year-old pacer has been a shorter price with each victory. He was 15-1 when he scored on March 15 with Jessie Pacheco in the bike, and has been 2-1, 7-5 and most recently 1-2 with James Kennedy at the controls.

Last week’s score saw Semicolon buzzing right to the top for Kennedy and the issue was never in doubt as he came home with more then three lengths to spare in a lifetime best 1:54 1/5 mile.

“James said he didn’t even pull the earplugs and had a lot of horse left,” Johnson related after the victory. “I bought him at the end of Running Aces and he’s been a real surprise.

“I’m hoping he turns out to be a nice horse, and we’re going to find out more now because he’s out of non-winners and the competition is going to get a lot tougher.”

by Mark Ratzky, for Cal Expo Harness