Inverness starts Sunday

The 2024 harness racing season at Inverness Raceway will start on Sunday, May 26 as the Nova Scotia half-mile oval will host a six-pack of dashes. First post time is set for 1 p.m. (ADT).

A $2,000 Winners Over top class pace is slated for the finale in the sixth race, with a half dozen grizzled veterans set to go postward.

The 2023 Horse of the Year at Inverness Raceway was Windemere Best Man (Malicious) and he’s reunited with defending dash driving champion Redmond Doucet in the afternoon’s feature. Now six, Windemere Best Man posted a 7-5-2 summary from 23 starts as a five-year-old for trainer Lanny Hanscombe and local owners Simon Poirier and Chad MacDonnell, taking a mark of 1:56.4. He’ll line up from post five on Sunday, with perhaps an axe to grind as the morning line oddsmaker dismissed the defending champion as the 4-1 third choice.

Sunshine Lou (PP3, Danny Gillis) is the 5-2 morning line choice, coming into his eight-year-old season after ending his seven-year-old campaign with seven top-three finishes in his his last 10 appearances. Eastcoast Invader (PP6, Monica Sutherland) is the 3-1 second choice on the morning line.

The youngest horse in the field is four-year-old Lyons Swift, the stablemate of Windemere Best Man who was also an Inverness award winner by virtue of his six-win sophomore campaign.

“Both horses trained down good,” said trainer Hanscombe told The Inverness Oran after qualifiers last Sunday. “We started in February and there were a lot of cold days, but you put the work in and after that everybody hopes for the best.”

The track’s 2024 race date schedule includes most Sunday afternoons (1 p.m. post time) in June, September and October with Wednesday evenings added in July and August except for Old Home Week.

Inverness Raceway will feature stakes action in 2024 with legs of the Atlantic Sires Stakes on June 16 for three-year-old pacing fillies, July 24 for two-year-old pacing fillies, July 28 for three-year-old pacing colts, and Sept. 1 for two-year-old pacing colts. On the trotting side, the Phil Pinkney Stake for two- and three-year-old trotters is also set for July 28 along with the Inverness Invitational Pace.

For complete race entries, click here.

From Standardbred Canada