by Mark Ratzky, publicity department, Sacramento Harness Association

Sacramento, CA — Mighty Midas, a coast-to-coast victor at this level in his most recent outing, heads the cast of eight set for Wednesday’s (July 25) $3,900 main event at Cal-Expo, which goes as the finale on the 10-race program.

This conditioned/claiming affair finds the pacers carrying base claiming prices of $18,000 and Mighty Midas figures to have his share of backers after proving a handy winner over this caliber at most recent asking. Diane Short trains and co-owns with Henry Wieseneck and Rick Plano will once again be handling the lines.

The 5-year-old son of Blissfull Hall was winning for the third time in 27 attempts on the year when he got the job done last week as the 8-5 second choice. Plano zipped the pacer right to the front where he was able to moderate the fractions and came home smartly to prevail by three lengths, while shaving a tick of a second off his lifetime mark with the 1:56.2 final clocking.

Rumers Are Flying is a Canadian import that is owned, trained and piloted by John Chappell. A winner of two of his 10 tries up at Northlands Park this season, he made his first start at this meet a winning one off the vacation and will step up to face a bit tougher for this go-around.

The only 3-year-old in the line-up, the As Promised offspring was 8-1 in last week’s mile while adding lasix. He tracked early, rallied strongly off the final turn and drew off by 2-1/2 lengths when all was said and done with a 1:56.2 performance. He lands post one for this assignment and despite facing a better crew, could easily do an encore off that solid comeback tour.

Trainer Gilbert Herrera will have a pair of uncoupled entrants. Gregg Pistochini and Michael Silber own Ridgeline, who has his conditioner in the bike. Herrera also sends out Oh Happy Days, who races for Ruben Arreguin and will be guided by Jim Lackey.

Ridgeline is looking to make amends after failing to threaten as the even-money choice last time, while Oh Happy Days was fourth in that mile after sitting a stalking journey. Both are capable of rebounding at what should be better odds.

Leadmeastray was runner-up to Mighty Midas at a big price last time and has to be respected. The Gene Vallandingham owned, trained and driven pacer has a 1:54 career standard, and has won in 1:55 earlier this season. His most recent snapshot came three tries back on July 5 while lighting up the board at nearly 18-1 that evening. He gets a negative post switch from the inside to the seven slot for this try, but has speed to get some early position.

Hidden Dragon N is the lone New Zealand import in the cast and he will carry the hopes of Katherine Bardis, trainer Bob Johnson and driver Rick Kuebler. He has just one win to show on the season with four runner-up finishes and was coming nicely at the end last week to get the show money in that Mighty Midas contest.

Rounding out the field are Red Star Governor with Robley Johnson driving and training; and Pebble Beach Rod, who leaves from the outside slot with Tim Maier.

Putting Chi-Cal in focus

Wednesday night will mark the third edition of the Chi-Cal Pick 4 Challenge, which combines two races at Hawthorne (races 10 and 11) in Illinois with a pair (races 9 and 10) from Cal-Expo. The $1 wager comes attached with a $25,000-guaranteed pool and winning tickets for the first two have returned just shy of $1,000 for each buck invested.

In hopes of giving the local handicappers a little help in making their way through the Hawthorne races, we went to Scott Ehrlich, who spent many years in the Windy City before becoming the Cal-Expo announcer and publicity director.

“Hawthorne is a mile track just like Balmoral, but the stretch at Balmoral is 40 feet longer and the turns at Hawthorne are more sweeping. Drivers at Hawthorne tend to pull earlier, because there isn’t an open stretch like there is at Balmoral, where you see the drivers waiting longer to start their move.”

Hawthorne publicity director Jim Miller also had some helpful hints.

“Even though there’s a fairly quick run into the first turn, with the staggered starting gate things are evened out quite a bit and the outside posts aren’t at the big disadvantage you’d think they might be.”

As far as drivers go, Miller gave a couple to give extra consideration.

“Michael Oosting always hits at a high percentage, and Brent Holland seems to be driving with quite a bit of confidence right now.”

We hope this has been helpful in putting together your Chi-Cal ticket. There were boxcar payoffs in the companion Bal-Cal wager last fall, with returns of $20,000, $19,000 and $18,000 for each $1 ticket correctly forecasting the cross-country combination.

Who knows, it just might happen again.

Post time for the first leg of the Chi-Cal Challenge will be at approximately 8:18 p.m. (PDT).

Live racing resumes at Cal-Expo tonight (Wednesday), continuing through Saturday. Post time on Wednesday and Thursday is at 5:35 p.m. (PDT). Post time on Friday and Saturday is at 6:15 p.m. On Wednesday, admission is free, plus 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!