by Karsten Bonsdorf, USTA web newsroom correspondent

Kentucky Futurity winner Wishing Stone is the hot favorite to win the Swedish stake race Sprintermástaren — also called the Swedish Hambletonian — on Thursday night (July 7) at Halmstad in the southern part of Sweden.

Sprintermástaren is raced in the old fashioned way of the Hambletonian Stake with eliminations and a final over the mile on the same day; however, the Swedish race is for 4-year-old trotters.

A total of 27 horses entered the box and are split into three divisions.

Wishing Stone, who has been matched against top elder trotters recently, is the heavy favorite in the first elimination. The son of Conway Hall will have the top Swedish driver Ake Svanstedt in the bike and will race from post position seven.

The second elimination has the Swedish entry Orecchietti, driven by Ôrjan Kihlström, as the favorite, while North American bred Formula One with Erik Adielsson is favored to win the third elimination.

In each elimination the winner’s purse is $16,000 and in the final it is $145,000.

From the 27 horses entered in the race no less than 14 of them are sired by North American based stallions. Windsong’s Legacy is leading the way with five offspring, Yankee Glide has three, Cantab Hall and Conway Hall both have two and Malabar Man and SJ’s Caviar have one each.