by Mark Ratzky, publicity department, Sacramento Harness Association

Sacramento, CA— Jessalilmixup, currently the winningest 3-year-old pacing filly in the country with 14 victories from her 20 starts on the year, looks to add to that impressive total as she suits up for Wednesday’s (August 22) $3,500 pacing feature at Cal-Expo.

The streaking performer will find things a bit more challenging here, as she is moving up in class for this outing while facing a full field of nine rivals.

A 3-year-old daughter of Little Steven and the Precious Bunny mare Yankee Shiloh, Jessalilmixup was bred by Alan Kirschenbaum, who co-owns the distaffer with trainer Denise Maier. Tim Maier will again be handling the reins.

The bay miss was originally co-owned by Jessica Hensley and trained and driven by her husband, Ed, but when they moved East, Kirschenbaum became partners with the Maiers on this gal and she has continued her winning ways.

Jessalilmixup comes into Wednesday’s assignment riding a six-race winning streak, with each of those victories coming at the NW-4 conditioned/claiming level. With her victory last week, she went over the $22,500 earnings cap that has allowed her to compete with this caliber.

Jessalilmixup established her 1:55 flat career standard two weeks ago while reporting home promptly as the 3-5 favorite. She made what proved to be the winning move to the lead midway down the backside and prevailed by two lengths.

In last week’s outing, the Maier trainee was again hammered down to odds-on and did not disappoint her many backers. Once again she settled early, made a power brush to command for Maier before the half, then took complete control of things from that point on.

Not surprisingly, Kirschenbaum is proud of the 14 wins this filly has posted to this point.

“She may not be competing against the best of her age group, but she gives a good, solid effort every week.”

Set to line up against the filly, from the rail out, are Hidden Dragon N, Manstorm, Jay Bee’s Muffie, Rich And Roll, Red Star Paylater, Thecurrentoperator, This Is Life and Fullback In Motion.

All aboard the Bal-Cal express

It’s time for another edition of the Bal-Cal Pick 4 Challenge, which combines two races from Balmoral Park (races 10 and 11) in Illinois, and a pair (races 9 and 10) from Cal-Expo. The $1 wager comes attached with a $25,000-guaranteed pool.

While last week’s Bal-Cal return was on the modest side, there have been some major jackpots in this bet, including toteboard-exploding payoffs of $20,000, $19,000 and $18,000 last fall.

Local racing secretary Fred Kuebler and his counterpart at Balmoral “Doc” Narotsky do their very best to come up with the two most challenging events on their respective cards.

“The first thing we do is pick out the fullest fields,” Kuebler explained. “Then we look at each race and try to find the most contention. We’re looking at the last six racing lines, just like you would do in the program, and the idea is to find races where there won’t be any heavy favorites.

“Hopefully, this will lead to races with nice prices, and then a good-sized payoff when our two races are put together with the two from Balmoral.”

With the guarantee of at least $25,000 up for grabs and each combination only costing a buck, it’s easy to see how much value the Bal-Cal offers. Sharpen those pencils and take a shot.

Post time for the first leg of the Bal-Cal Challenge will be at approximately 8:26 p.m. (PDT).

Live racing resumes at Cal-Expo tonight (Wednesday), continuing through Saturday. Post time on Wednesday and Thursday is at 6:15 p.m. (PDT). Post time on Friday and Saturday is at 6:30 p.m. On Wednesday, Cal-Expo offers a complete lasagna dinner, with salad and bread, for just $2.00.

Cal-Expo offers guaranteed $10,000 pools on all Pick-4’s!