Features Pay At Meadows, Northfield; Top Price $25; Exacta $27

TwinSpires Harness Blog reports on its feature races this weekend. Plus we share the shape of our horses-to-watch list (H2W) from last week’s choices. Check our News & Notes section for reporting and remarking on the states of our sport.

Thursday, Nov. 25

Woodbine/Mohawk offered harness racing in their neighborhood for us Americans on Thanksgiving night. We chose four as features.

Our sole winner in the features area was Pink Pistol ($7.10, $4.60, $3.30), with favorite Gloire Dream breaking stride to finish fourth and Wings Up (12-1) useless in exotics.

From the H2W list that night, we hit with another winner at WoMo (see Winners listed below).

Otherwise, we were third with Magnus Seelster ($2.90), had three fifths with Fear The Shadow (favorite), Emptiythetill (7-2) and Mohegan Blue Chip (27-1), a sixth with Dagger Watch (6-1) and an eighth with Black Smile (23-1) as contenders.

Friday, Nov. 27

Although we missed one of the legs of a Pick 3 at the Meadows, we nailed two legs, good for strong win prices: Believeinthespirit ($25.80, $11.40, $7.40) and Bye Bye John ($10.60, $4.60, $2.60). In concert with those winners were contenders Neat (11-1), finishing fourth, as did Brackley Beach (10-1), Allgonowhaha (49-1), eighth, and Imideal Hanover (6-1), ninth.

Saturday, Nov. 28

Saturday’s feature at Northfield delivered a $27.40 exacta with Star Of The West ($10.80, $4.20, $3.40) and Baddabingbaddabang ($2.80, $2.20). Party Belle (9-1) finished fourth.

(Selected features contenders that do not win appear in H2W the following week unless otherwise mentioned as bet-backs.)

H2W LIST RESULTS

The H2W results list across-the-board prices. Exactas listed include a H2W horse finishing second to a race-favorite or if the first two finishers are H2W horses (an asterisk appears when both horses are listed—a cold exacta). The note “ok” determines that prices are correct (even when a show price exceeds a place price or all prices are the same).

Please note that some results reflect horses racing after the blog posts (they appear the following week).

This week, there were 31 active horses (a 10 percent win hit rate and a 35-percent ATB [across-the-board] hit rate).

Winners

Little Honeybadger, $15.40, $6.00, $3.40, Freehold
Rowlen, $8.90, $5.50, $4.20, WoMo
High Gear No Fear, $7.80, $4.60, $3.80, WoMo

Seconds

Tequila N Roses, $13.60, $11.40, Rosecroft
Waitin On A River, $5.40, $3.60 (Exacta $21.50), Cal Expo
Scotlynn Seelster, $3.80, $2.80 (Exacta $31.00), Plainridge

Thirds

Winonefordoug, $13.60, Cal Expo
Tookadiveoffdipper, $5.60, Yonkers
Massive Stroke, $4.00, Meadows
Gentlemanjim Ii Ie, $3.10, Yonkers
Meadowbranch Ricky, $2.10, Philly

NEWS & NOTES

The 2020 racing season at Hoosier Park concluded on Nov. 21, producing sizeable gains in all-sources handle during the shortened 111-day meeting. Handle increased over 35 percent from the previous year’s numbers. The total handle was $70,967,441. The average daily handle was $639,346 (111 days), as compared to $497,460 (160 days) in 2019, representing an increase of 28.5 per cent. Race cards featured fuller fields over the previous year’s numbers, averaging 8.8 betting interests per race compared to 8.47.  In addition, Hoosier averaged 13.9 races per day compared to 12.5 races per day.

Tim Tetrick and Fortify pounced favorite No Lou Zing and captured the $325,000 Progress Pace for soph-pacing colts and geldings on Nov. 25 at Dover Downs. A field of eight lined up for the stakes event, with No Lou Zing and Cattlewash drawing posts 7 and 8, respectively. Tattoo Artist out-sprinted the two public choices before No Lou Zing chased too hard to grab the lead. No Lou Zing got the top, but Tetrick move Fortify three-wide around the far turn and to win 1:48.2 at 10-1.

Speaking of Tim, he won five races on Nov. 27 at Philly, but only brought flat-bet-profit players $21.20. Tim raced in 13 of the program’s 14 races, winning five with obvious contenders that paid a top price of $5.40. The efforts returned minus $4.60 what it cost to play Tim’s drives, which was $26.00.

TwinSpires’ Ed DeRosa speaks our language: “The only good thing about jackpot pick N is all the crazy name variations. The Tampa Bay Downs variety is the ULTIMATE Pick 6. Must be good if it shares a name with Brisnet PPs. Fonner Racing should debut the Runza Pick 5. Arapahoe the Weed 6, etcetera.”

Oak Grove Racing concluded its 2020 meet. The leading trainer was Dean Eckley with 17 wins from 71 starts. Jamaica Patton came in second with 10 wins and Joe Putnam was third with nine victories. The leading driver was Kyle Wilfong, who finished with 28 wins from 115 starts. Tyler Shehan finished second with 18 wins and Randy Crisler was third with 17. Oak Grove Racing begins its 2021 meet on Oct. 12 with 20 racing programs.

Extraordinary Extras

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