by Karsten Bønsdorf, USTA Newsroom Senior Correspondent

The French trotting star Ready Cash will return to action Saturday afternoon (Dec. 6) at Vincennes after a 10 month leave.

Gerard Forni photo

Ready Cash trains in preparation for his return to the races.

Actually Ready Cash was officially retired from racing back in February this year, but his main owner, Philippe Allaire, who is one of the leading trainers in France, decided to put him back in training. Ready Cash will be aimed for another shot at the Prix d’Amerique, to be raced in late January 2015. However, at present Ready Cash is not eligible to race in the Prix d’Amerique, as he has not won 31,000 Euro or $38,000 dollars this year.

On Saturday Ready Cash, with regular driver Franck Nivard, will trail the field by 25 meters in the Prix du Bourbonnais, which is the second test race leading up to the Prix d’Amerique. It is not an impossible mission for Ready Cash on Saturday afternoon, as he has won the race twice and holds the race record of 1:56.3 (mile rate).

A total of 16 trotters have declared for the Prix du Bourbonnais, which is raced over 1-3/4 miles; only three are foreign and they are all from Sweden.

Between the Swedish entrants is USA-born Solvato — a full brother to Shake It Cerry — who will have the services of Ôrjan Kihlström, who recently was behind Commander Crowe in the Breeders Crown. Solvato is trained by Veijo Heiskanen, and he has also driven the son of Donato Hanover in races, but Heiskanen feels that Kihlström is much better at home at Vincennes.