Grand River’s first five-eighths mile season in the books

Grand River Raceway concluded its first season as a five-eighths mile harness racing track on Monday (Sep. 30) with Travis Henry and Ashley Lendvoy securing end-of-meet honours.

Henry was the oval’s top driver with 54 wins, 10 more than both Jason Ryan and Brett MacDonald, who tied for second. Lendvoy’s took home the leading trainer award with 19 victories. Julie Walker and Kyle Bossence each finished with 13, tying for the place spot.

Grand River reconfigured to a five-eighths mile track after 19 years as a half-miler. It opened in 2004. Every track record was rewritten this year, with three-year-old Betthebeach Yankee (Betting Line), trained by Lendvoy, becoming the fastest horse in the track’s history. It was a buzzer-beating performance too, coming in the penultimate card of the meet. Stonebridge Wizard’s 1:51.2 win in the Battle of Waterloo tied the national record for a two-year-old on a five-eighths-mile track, one of five Canadian records to be equaled at the circuit this year.

Full Disclosure (Sweet Lou, Austin Sorrie) won the closing night feature, forging to the front off a three-wide move to take the Pop-Up Series Final by three-quarters-of-a-length in 1:53.3 over Hes Sporty (Darryl Thiessen). The Lendvoy-trained five-year-old is now eight-for-93 lifetime and has earned $140,820 for Gino Toscani.

FULL DISCLOSURE REPLAY

Ryan and MacDonald both tripled on the card.

For complete race results, click here.

by Nicholas Barnsdale, for Harnesslink