Plenty of options in contentious main event

There are several ways you can go in Saturday night’s featured Open III Pace at Cal Expo, with two of the harness racing options being the classy Allmyx’sliventexas (Hi Ho Silverheel) and the hard-knocking Love Your Work (Western Terror).

The co-featured pace on the nine-race card finds the streaking mare Graceful Horizon taking on the boys and things get started at 6:35 p.m. under the Watch and Wager LLC banner.

Allmyx’sliventexas is one of the most popular performers on the grounds and comes into this assignment with 65 wins from his 215 starts, $371,000 in the bank and a 1:50 lifetime mark.

The 12-year-old Hi Ho Silverheel’s homebred races for Wayne Knittel, takes his lessons from Bob Johnson and will have James Kennedy giving directions.

Love Your Work comes out of the best races for driver/trainer Nick Roland as he exits last month’s Dave Goldschmidt and a pair of Open contests. Sarah Solheid and Brian Detgen own the son of Western Terror.

Capt Jack Hanover is up a notch in class as he eyes his fourth straight victory for driver/trainer John MacDonald, who co-owns the speedster with M.J. Kessler and Speed to Burn Racing Stable.

Rounding out the contentious cast are Tommy Shelby, Albergo Hanover, Major Offense and Myartbelongstorock.

Graceful Horizon has won three of her last four starts for Set The Pace Racing and driver/trainer Nick Roland and it will be interesting to see how she fares vs. the males this weekend.

Kehl making the most with Serene Hall

Alexia Kehl is having a lot of fun with her veteran trotter Serene Hall, who gave her an initial pari-mutuel driving victory back in late December.

Alexia has seven performers under her care at this meet and admits a soft spot for the 9-year-old son of Guccio, who is closing in on the $200,000 mark in earnings.

“He doesn’t have a big personality like some horses, he just goes out and does his job,” Kehl related. “He’s a pleasure to drive, which makes him the perfect horse for an amateur driver like me.”

Alexia admits there were some nerves when she handled the sidewheeler back on December 28, as the public has backed Serene Hall down to 3-5 favoritism that evening.

After stalking the pace in that affair, Kehl made a sweeping move off the final bend and went on to a five-length romp. “There’s even more pressure when the public expects you to win, but everything worked out perfectly that night,” she noted.

In addition to Serene Hall, Kehl also conditions the classy trotter Dylan The Great, who won here last month and is coming off back-to-back runner-up efforts in the Open Trot.

Alexia will stay through the end of the meet in May, then will head back to Minnesota where she looks forward to working with a couple of babies.

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

by Mark Ratzky, for Cal Expo Harness