by Emily Gaskin, for Hoosier Park

Anderson, IN — Grand Circuit racing action will make its way back to Hoosier Park for the fourth and final time this season on Friday (Nov. 4) and with it bring some of the top rated horses in North America in search of the lucrative purses offered on the 14-race card beginning at 5:45 p.m.

With purses approaching $1 million, Hoosier Park will host a standout card that includes the $200,000 Monument Circle Pace for 3-year-old pacing colts and geldings, the $220,000 Carl Erskine Trot for 3-year-old trotting colts and geldings, the $115,000 Crossroads of America for 3-year-old trotting fillies and the $112,500 USS Indianapolis Memorial for 3-year-old pacing fillies.

Fresh off a win in the $500,000 Breeders Crown final for 3-year-old trotting colts, Bar Hopping will look to add to his bankroll when he visits Indiana for the first time this season in the $220,000 Carl Erskine Trot for trainer Jimmy Takter. The Muscle Hill-Cocktail Hour colt, whose seasonal earnings just surpassed the $1 million mark, has won eight of 17 seasonal outings while also recording wins in the $522,210 Canadian Trotting Classic and $300,000 Zweig Memorial. Bar Hopping will play the role of morning line favorite at 3-5 in the Carl Erskine Trot and start from post two with Tim Tetrick in the bike.

Hoosier Park’s leading trainer Ron Burke will send out a strong contingent in the $200,000 Monument Circle Pace which has been slated as the 12th race on the evening’s program. Check Six, one of five horses from the Burke Stable in the Monument Circle, is the slight 7-5 morning line favorite over stablemate Manhattan Beach who has been enlisted at 8-5. Manhattan Beach finished second in the Breeders Crown final and Check Six was third. Burke has trained three of the last four winners in the previous editions of the Monument Circle Pace at Hoosier Park.

“Check Six has been racing tough all year racing week in and week out,” Burke noted. “He went a brutal trip last week in the Breeders Crown final so if the trip works out a little better for him in the Monument Circle, I think he will be sharp.”

Burke also has two chances to win the $112,500 USS Indianapolis Memorial for 3-year-old pacing fillies on Friday with Yankee Moonshine and Dime A Dance. Dime A Dance has won four of 16 seasonal outings while earning $237,510 in purse earnings and will start from post 10 with Matt Kakaley in the bike. Yankee Moonshine and Yannick Gingras drew post six. The Burke pair will look to upset the Indiana Sires Stakes champion Seventimesavirgin and John DeLong who will start from the coveted rail position. Seventimesavirgin went undefeated in Indiana Sires Stakes action this season but had her nine-race winning streak snapped last week in Grand Circuit stakes action at Hoosier Park.

In conjunction with the racing action on the track, Hoosier Park will host “Fantastic Fridays” and feature $1 beers, $1 hot dogs, and $1 programs during live racing. At the conclusion of live racing, the popular Corey Cox Band will perform a free show in the Terrace Showroom.

For more information on the upcoming live racing and entertainment at Hoosier Park, please visit www.hoosierpark.com. The live racing schedule at Hoosier Park will follow a Tuesday through Saturday schedule and be conducted through Nov. 12.