Wiseman Memorial, Cal Sire Stakes at Cal Expo

The Steve Wiseman Memorial Free-For-All for filly and mare harness racing pacers holds the spotlight at Cal Expo Harness Friday night (March 8) with Give Me This Dance and Graceful Horizon heading the cast.

There will be 10 races decided on Friday evening with things getting underway at 6:45 p.m.

There is a $2,200 carryover in the 20-cent Pick 7 with a $7,500-guaranteed gross pool.

Give Me This Dance is a Wind Me Up homebred who races for Alan Cheryl Sandbulte with Luke Plano driving and training.

She comes into this assignment with 26 wins from her 78 starts, a 1:51 mark set over this track and she’s just shy of the $300,000 earnings plateau.

Graceful Horizon is trained and driven by Nick Roland while racing for Set The Pace Racing LLC and is eying her 29th snaphshot from 73 career outings with $265,000 in the bank.

Taking on this pair are Divine Art, Senga Nightmare, Shirley Skip Shady and What Cheer.

Looking ahead to Sunday’s program, a pair of $20,000 California Sire Stakes for the 3-year-old pacers will get the marquee treatment.

Another Tuff Woman was a romping winner of the first big-money clash for the sophomore fillies and looms large right back, while Celebrity Status was posing for pictures after the initial stakes dance for the 3-year-old males.

Bin A Mystery solves stakes puzzle

Last week’s California Sire Stakes clash for the 4-year-old pacers turned out to be a thriller, with Bin A Mystery (Mystery Chase) and James Kennedy prevailing by a half-length over Dougsmonkeybusiness and heavily favored Polar Storm in the blanket finish.

A 4-year-old owned by Mark Anderson; Bin A Mystery had to settle for a well-beaten third in the first stakes clash for this group in February but was much tighter for this assignment in only his second appearance of the season.

“He definitely needed that first race,” Kennedy noted. “It was the plan all along to just wait for the next stakes and I had a lot of confidence because he was training great, and his attitude was super going into the race.

“It worked out perfectly when Polar Storm covered us up down the backstretch and I knew I had a lot of horse coming down the stretch, it was just a matter of keeping him straight. He gave me a real nice finish.”

Last Sunday’s program was contested over a track labelled good due to on and off rain, but Kennedy revealed it wasn’t a concern.

“Some drivers seemed to be over adjusting, but I thought it was a very fair track,” he noted.

Bin A Mystery will get three more chances to add to his trophy case, with the richest prize coming on the closing night card May 3 with the $50,000 Championship on tap.

by Mark Ratzky, for Cal Expo Harness