by Ken Weingartner, Harness Racing Communications

Ken Weingartner

Freehold, NJ — A year ago, Sandbetweenurtoes won her first eight races of the season before seeing her campaign derailed by illness. She has returned this year to win two of five starts and is the favorite in Saturday’s $213,450 Golden Girls for older female pacers at Meadowlands Racetrack.

The Golden Girls is part of a stakes-filled night at the Big M. The card also includes the $706,000 Meadowlands Pace for 3-year-old pacers, $443,300 Hambletonian Maturity for 4-year-old trotters, $430,600 William R. Haughton Memorial for older male pacers, $207,350 Mistletoe Shalee for 3-year-old female pacers, $187,000 Delvin Miller Memorial for 3-year-old female trotters, and two $155,000-plus divisions of the Stanley Dancer Memorial for 3-year-old male trotters.

Sandbetweenurtoes enters the Golden Girls off a win in the Preferred for fillies and mares at Mohawk Racetrack on July 4. Last year, she won her first eight races, including the Mistletoe Shalee, but failed to hit the board in her final three starts of the season. She finished with $252,572 in purses for owner Brad Grant and the stable of trainers Larry and Ray Remmen.

“She ended up getting sick and she never overcame it,” Larry Remmen said. “We tried to play catch-up and it just doesn’t work that late in the year. This year she’s come back a little stronger and, knock on wood, she’s been healthy. She’s trained good so maybe if we get the right trip there we can do some damage.”

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Sandbetweenurtoes enters the Golden Girls off a win in the Preferred for fillies and mares at Mohawk Racetrack on July 4.

A daughter of Somebeachsomewhere out of the mare Al’s Girl, Sandbetweenurtoes started this year with a fifth-place finish in the Open Handicap for fillies and mares at the Meadowlands, beaten only 1-3/4 lengths. She won a conditioned race at Harrah’s Philadelphia, then was third-placed-second in her elimination for the Roses Are Red Stakes and third in the Roses Are Red final at Mohawk.

Sandbetweenurtoes won the July 4 Preferred at Mohawk in gate-to-wire fashion by 1-1/2 lengths over Marlee B in 1:50.4.

“She raced good in Canada,” Remmen said. “She won her last start, but I thought she would have won a little easier. But that’s kind of the way she races. She only does what she has to do when she’s left alone on the front. The bottom line is she won the race. She had a good go in the three starts up there.

“So far she’s been going the right way at the wire. I’m happy with how she’s progressed so far. It’s a long year for the horses racing in that company.”

This year’s Golden Girls features a 12-horse field and will be contested at 1-1/8 miles. Sandbetweenurtoes will start from post two with driver John Campbell and is the modest 4-1 favorite on the morning line.

Katie Said, leaving from post three with Brett Miller at the lines for trainer Jimmy Takter, is the 9-2 second choice. Color’s A Virgin, Table Talk, Venus Delight, Rocklamation, Anndrovette, and Beach Story are listed at 5-1 to 8-1 on the morning line.

Rocklamation is a two-time Golden Girls champion and is joined by Anndrovette and Color’s A Virgin as Dan Patch Award winners in the field.

“It’s pretty wide open,” Remmen said. “I think it’s a pretty even field. It’s going to come down to the trip; we’ll have to see what the fractions go. It should be interesting with 12 horses at a mile and an eighth. It seems like in those races there are horses that look like certain winners and it all changes the last sixteenth of a mile.

“I’m curious to how it’s going to play out, but we’re hoping for good things.”