Palm Beach Weekly Wrap Up 11-13-2016

Another fantastic week of racing action at America's favorite greyhound destination.  Lets get into the top stories we saw the past 7 days at the Palm Beach Kennel Club!

World Series of Poker Is Back at PBKC

It's that time of year where the chips start flying, gold rings are given out and the fancy race blankets are won on the Royal Palm Course.

The World Series of Poker stormed into South Florida last Thursday, which brought the annual WSOP Kickoff Feature for our entertainment.  An exciting race this time around as Atascocita Kline was oh so fine in getting the nail biting box to wire victory in 29.88 secs. Congrats to Suncoast Racing & Kline on the win!

Here's the replay:

http://www.trackinfo.com/video-box.jsp?raceid=gPB%2420161110A06

Big Mac Is On Fire

One of the most popular athletes at Palm Beach is Blu Too Tarmac from the Royal Racing Team and for good reason.  The 29 time winner has been thrilling fans for two plus seasons and probably made a few more this past week.

"Big Mac" came out on Election Day and scorched the 4th fastest sprint time of the season, getting the 29.21 secs victory in what was a very surprising run considering the track really wasn't all that fast all day long.  Mac used that patented quick first step to take the lead from the 5 hole and continued to drop the hammer all the way home.

Anybody that thought the time was a fluke were quickly subdued on Sunday as Tarmac put up an equally impressive split, winning in 29.22 secs which looked a lot like his Tuesday start. This is one greyhound you must be watching going forward because he looks like he is on a mission out there right now. Mac Attack!

Royal Queen

Speaking of Royal Racing, they've got another sprinter that is sweet off the course but an absolute monster of a racer on it.

Cbj Tootsie Roll went head to head with nationally ranked Gv MooseIsLoose in Saturday's Matinee finale for the very first time in a match up that was a perfect end to Superstar Saturday. "Tootsie" and Moose ran right with each other around the entire course, bumped twice coming for home before Tootsie Roll prevailed at the line by just 0.02 secs.

Tootsie Roll is now up to 10 victories on the season, firmly putting herself in the conversation for a Track Championship and a definite contender for a big stakes title coming this winter.

With Royal Racing being shut out from the stakes podium since 2014 with Flying Zinc, their team now has two top stars to try and bring home another championship with Tarmac and Tootsie.

Superstars Are Set To Return Soon

I'll admit I'm a big nerd when it comes to stats and race pages. One of my favorite things to look at throughout the week is the schooling entries that come out each Wednesday & Sunday.  I was super excited to see that Puppy Stakes Finalist Big Red Dog and the fastest sprinter of the season JustDoInMyThing both were schooling this week as they race back into shape for their returns.

After taking a nice 6 week vacation to rest up, "Clifford" looks to be in the best form at this point.  Big Cliff won both schooling races using his famous box fire break to take the lead early and coast home in both. JustDoInMyThing from the Janie Carroll Kennel has been vacationing since late August, so it may take a while for him to get back to his early season shape.  The star power at "The Beach" certainly went up ten fold this week with these two back in the headlines.

2017 Stakes Schedule Announced

Palm Beach announced this past week what dates their biggest stakes finals will be on as we start to creep towards 2017. Here's the schedule:

$50,000 He's My Man Final Saturday, January 28th

$50,000 James W Paul 3/8th Mile Derby Saturday, February 25th

$50,000 St Patricks Day Invitational Saturday March 18th

Obviously the biggest story of the Big 3 Finals is the He's My Man which we all know directly interferes with our Daytona 550 National Championship on January 21st. Many at Palm Beach and myself are worried about the possibility that our home track will get shut out of the NC simply because owners may be reluctant to skip the HMM for it. Invites for the big dance will be coming out in the next few weeks.  I do think Palm is going to have a representative in Daytona, but it may take some creative thinking and patience to pull it off.  Stay tuned to what will be a very intriguing story to follow.

The Derby date is always a must know for prospective greyhounds and owners, as the hounds must have 3 official starts on the Pat C Rendezvous 660 Yard Course by the beginning of February to be eligible for this tourney.

That's all we have for this week.  We'll see you next time for the Wrap Up!