from the PHHA/Pocono

Wilkes-Barre, PA — The Downs at Mohegan Sun Pocono will not feature live racing this Sunday (April 16), so that fans, workers, and horsemen may enjoy the Easter holiday with their families. But there will still be plenty of top-class racing action on the Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday cards, all of which start at 6:30 p.m.

The Saturday night card will highlight the fast-class older horses, topped by a spectacularly-competitive field of nine in the $25,000 winners-over pace. Five of these horses show wins on their top lines, while the other four show victories two lines back — and three of them have won both outings. Those three, Book Binge (post two), Crafty Master (post three), and Casimir Jitterbug (post four), all obviously did well at the post positional shake, and are likely to draw their fair share of the mutuel attention.

The Monday and Tuesday cards will be headed by continuing $15,000 preliminary action in the Bobby Weiss Pacing Series. The four divisions — split by gait and age — each will have their contests within this round of preliminaries.

Monday’s card will feature the pacers, where both groups have already contested two preliminary legs. The only double winner among the pacers was the Western Terror gelding Dash Of Danger, but he will have a good bit to overcome in Monday’s 10th race — the outside in the field of six, along with two winners from last week’s prelim and one winner from the first leg of the series.

Among the mares, one division contains three previous Weiss winners and another two, but it is the third section, race 11, which is likely to attract more interest, even though it has only one previous Weiss leg winner. But that winner would be the Camluck mare Cousin Mary (post five), who came to town last week off of four straight wins in Yonkers’ Petticoat Series, including the championship, and she was impressive in her successful Pocono bow.

The only double winner in the Weiss among Tuesday’s trotters is the Kadabra mare Classic Avenue, who will have a simpler task than many in trying to post her third straight win. She draws the rail, and faces no previous Weiss winner in race five. In contrast, the 11th race cut features no fewer than three Weiss winners, including two from last week.

The males just began their Weiss competition this past Monday, and each of the three divisions will feature a horse trying to run his Weiss record to two-for-two: Ooh Rah (post five) in race four, Hilarious Hero (post two) in race 10, and Bend In The River (post one) in the 12th race.