Saturday Notes

One-quarter of the big harness racing weekend is complete. Foiled Again won the Molson Pace in 151.3, as expected by punters who sent him off as the overwhelming favorite. The race itself was tactically interesting, because there was only one leaver, the rail horse Legal Litigator. When Yannick Gingras got the two hole (you knew he would ease first up at some point), the race was pretty much over.

Tonight there are two races on tap: The NJ Classic at the M and the Dan Patch at Hoosier Park. Tomorrow the Swedish Elitlopp takes centre stage in one of the coolest harness events around.

For the Western Fair pick 4, close to $10,000 was wagered into the pool, which was fairly good. Last year they did about $3000 in the same pick 4. Pick 4's at very small half milers are sometimes hard to get going, I find. Northfield who does over $600k in handle can barely break $10,000. I suspect it is because of the payoffs - with chalk so prevalent, there is little reason to go deep, and with that, the pool sizes are small. It's easy to spend $500 in pick 4's at the Meadowlands, on Breeders Cup Day, what have you, but very hard to spend that at a half miler.

Tioga's pick 6 guarantee continues tomorrow and hopes to build. It has been building the last few weeks. In addition, there is some very good weekend racing at the up and coming oval.

In the sign of things to come file: Money from slots taken away from racing, year one result.

There are some updates on the nasty accident at Mohawk on Thursday.

Here is someone who gets the game; a breeding/industry rep from New York, talking about what needs to be done in that state.

Nice sniff out by a few guys at HRI. The author is listed as a journalist but a google search shows he was employed by the European Pari-Mutuel union - who at all costs loves to slam exchanges because they are something they don't like: Competition.

Enjoy your Saturday folks!