Top BC horses to battle for $50,000 Fraser finale stakes

The spring harness racing meet at Fraser Downs will conclude this weekend, and a pair of $50,000 stake finals will also occur.

Race 7 Penny Bath Memorial Stake 3-Year-Old Fillies

A field of five fillies will take the stage for the Penny Bath Memorial. Side Piece (Shadow Play) heads into the event as the morning line favourite at odds of 6-5. Jim Marino trains her and will have Brandon Campbell in the sulky. She has only made one start in 2023, and in that start, she won with a mile time of 1:56.4. Side Piece ended 2022 with three straight wins, all coming in the Betty Millbank Memorial series. She has only had seven-lifetime starts, but five of them have been wins, and she will look to add to that total Friday evening.

Stonebridge Jade (Bettors Delight) will look to still the show with Allan Molloy in the bike. Coming into the race at the morning line odd of 7-5, she should be highly considered. She made ten starts in 2023 and visited the winner’s circle on seven occasions. Stonebridge Jade’s last start was her only time not finishing in the top three this year, as she finished an uncharacteristic fifth. She is one of two of Rod Therres’s entries in this final.

The other Therres’s entry, Custard Or Nothing (Custard The Dragon), boasts morning line odds of 3-1. Therres himself will jump aboard when it is post-time. Custard Or Nothing has won two straight races heading into the final, and she earned a new lifetime mark of 1:55.1 her last time out. Even with the short field of five, this race is pretty wide open amongst its entrants.

Race 9 Kenny Linton Memorial Stake 3-Year-Old Colts & Geldings

A full field of nine colts and geldings will duke it out in Friday night’s finale at Fraser Downs. It is hard not to give Domi (Living It Up) a long looking heading into this one. He has not finished worse than third in his eight starts this year. He visited the winner’s circle four times in 2023 and earned himself a new lifetime mark of 1:55.2 back in March. Brandon Campbell teams up with the gelding, and they will be looking to score big.

Mickie Mantle (Custard The Dragon) has only made one start this season and finished a disappointing sixth place. However, he finished strong last year with five straight wins. If he can regain that high level of performance, he deserves better than 4-1 morning line odds. However, he may have to beat his lifetime mark of 1:55.3 if he hopes to take the crown.

A horse that could have some value is Shots Fired (Custard The Dragon), and he draws the inside post position. He comes into Friday evening with two straight wins but sits at 5-1 morning line odds. Those two wins did have Brandon Campbell in the bike, but he will be teamed up with Phillippe Hudon this time. Giving this duo the inside can be dangerous because this horse has won wire-to-wire in his last wins. However, the betting money might be too much on Campbell, and Hudon could sneak away with a solid victory.

Racing at Fraser Downs starts at 7:00 p.m. PDT on Thursday and 6:00 p.m. PDT on Friday.

by Trey Colbeck, for Harnesslink