Downstate Classics Head-Up Plentiful Carrollton Card
By Mike Paradise
There’s plenty of quantity and quality on Tuesday evening’s Green County harness racing program on the Carrollton County Fair track. An 18 racing card will be presented and it’s highlighted by the Downstate Classic stakes for ICF 3-year-olds of both sexes and gaits.
The first eight races on the racing program that begins at 6 o’clock are all Downstate Classic stake divisions with many of the top sophomore state-bred pacers and trotters competing.
The $7,818 first race 3-year-old filly trot lured White Pants Fever (Steve Searle), a winner of her Violet division at Hawthorne earlier this month. The second sophomore filly trot division has Trotting Grace (Kyle Husted), runner-up in the first leg of the Beulah Dygert along with Daryl Busse series victor Sunny Sasha (Jared Finn) going postward.
The first $7,291 Downstate Class for trotting colts and geldings will see Cruzen Cassi (Jared Finn) and Illinimight (Mike Brink), the one-two finishers in a recent division of the Cardinal stake, renew their rivalry.
The Curt Grummel Stable’s Big Lou, shown here winning the first leg of Hawthorne’s Erwin F. Dygert series with Tim Curtin, will be in action Tuesday night in a 3-year-old Downstate Classic colt trot division at Carrollton. (Four Footed Fotos)
Ryans Mistress (Ronnie Gillespie) who swept Hawthorne’s Dave Magee series last month is a major contender in the third race Downstate Classic for 3-year-old filly pacers while The Sis Master (Michelle Morgan) and The New Americana (Steve Searle), the second and third place finishers a Violet pace division, will slug it out again in the second $7,263 filly stake split.
The first of two $8,927 divisions of the Downstate Classic for 3-year-old ICF male pacers has Al’s Briefs (Travis Seekman) gunning for his third consecutive victory. The Clark Fairly trained pacer captured a division of the Cardinal stake earlier this month at Hawthorne.
The second division of state-bred colt pacers brought out Mykonos (Mike Rogers), a four-time winner as a freshman and Sagebrush Sharp (Ronnie Gillespie), victorious in a leg of a Hawthorne Late Closer event earlier in the year, among its five starters.
The last two races on the card are 3-year-old and upward trots sponsored by the I.H.H.A. the $1,500 mare division features Lous Credit Report (Ronnie Gillespie) a mainstay this season in Hawthorne’s Open trot events. Louscipher, the 2017 Illinois Three-Year-Old Trotter of the Year goes to the gate with trainer Curt Grummel in the $1,550 horse and gelding division finale.