by Jeff Renton, media/communications, the Woodbine Entertainment Group

TORONTO, April 4, 2006 – The stage has been set for the 19th edition of the Spring Pacing Championship (SPC) for four-year-olds and older horses, as a full 10-horse field has been drawn to contest the C$115,500 event Friday evening at Woodbine.

Preliminary leg victors Roddys Bags Again (PP2, Chris Christoforou), L H Stryker (PP4, Mario Baillargeon), Holborn Hanover (PP7, Rick Zeron) and Tigerama (PP9, Mark MacDonald) have drawn across the starting gate for the fifth race (9:04 p.m.) on the 11-dash programme, which gets underway at 7:40 p.m.

L H Stryker, a five-year-old son of Apaches Fame trained by Kyle Reibeling, didn’t participate in last week’s second leg after he went gate-to-wire in his opening leg split, having notched the fractions in :26.3, :55.1 and 1:24.2, respectively, before coming home with a :27.2 final quarter to freeze the timer in 1:51.4, a personal season’s best.

Holborn Hanover, a gelded five-year-old son of Cams Card Shark, was victorious in the opening leg for trainer Mark Harder before finishing second in last week’s prelim. Unlike L H Stryker, Holborn Hanover, a career earner of over $1.3-million in purses, closed hard from off the pace to record a half-length score in 1:52.2.

After missing the opening leg and shipping into the barn of conditioner Joe Stutzman, Roddys Bags Again, a four-year-old son of Dragon Again, prevailed in his second leg split. The career winner of 13 dashes utilized a quarter-pole move to obtain the lead and didn’t look back, recording a 1¼-length tally in 1:50.4, his quickest victory of 2006.

In his second leg division, Tigerama continued to rack up his ‘06 numbers on the WEG circuit, as he took the wire-to-wire route before stopping the clock in 1:51.2. Trainer Richard Griffiths has had a great deal of success with the six-year-old son of Village Jiffy over the past two campaigns, and Tigerama will be looking to notch his 41st career victory in the final.

Big Bonus (PP1, TBA), Our Lucky Killean (PP3, Jack Moiseyev), 2005 SPC champ Whosurboy (PP5, Luc Ouellette), Four Starz Sisco (PP6, Pat Hudon), the dangerous Primetime Bobcat (PP8, Jody Jamieson) and Buckeye One (PP10, Randy Waples) will round out the field.

The complete post position draw results are listed below.

Spring Pacing Championship
Post Position – Horse – Listed Driver – Trainer
1 – Big Bonus – TBA – J. Libby
2 – Roddys Bags Again – C. Christoforou – J. Stutzman
3 – Our Lucky Killean – J. Moiseyev – C. Coleman
4 – L H Stryker – M. Baillargeon – K. Reibeling
5 – Whosurboy – L. Ouellette – M. Ford
6 – Four Starz Sisco – Pa. Hudon – Pa. Hudon
7 – Holborn Hanover – R. Zeron – M. Harder
8 – Primetime Bobcat – J. Jamieson – A. Montini
9 – Tigerama – Ma. MacDonald – R. Griffiths
10 – Buckeye One – Ra. Waples – B. Robinson

Note: All horses will be racing from the Retention Barn.

Pick-7 hit on Tuesday evening

One ticket was sole on Woodbine’s Pick-7 wager on Tuesday evening, and paid the entire pool — C$383,154.90.

The ticket was purchased at a teletheatre in Kentucky. A total of C$235,878.17 was bet into the Pick-7 pool on Tuesday.

The winning numbers were 2-2-1-7-6-8-5 and the winning horses were Classic Toy ($9.10), Abundaspin ($23.90), Pierce Seelster ($7.50), King Covenant ($11.10), Recurring Star ($5.80), Brazen ($48.60), and Woolloomooloo ($5.90).

The Pick-7 requires bettors to correctly select the winners of races three through nine, but if there are no winning tickets, 25 percent of the net pool is paid out to the ticket holder(s) with the most correct selections and the balance is carried over to begin the next race date’s Pick-7 pool.