Palm Beach Weekly Wrap Up 12-18-2016

Are we really only one week away from all the holiday festivities to get rolling?  As the celebrating is about to begin next weekend, the action at The Palm Beach Kennel Club was superb this past week. The youngsters in the Futurity continue to bring their best game in the biggest tourneys of their career and Ethel Is Here continues to be historic.

Here's the top stories we saw from this past week at "The Beach."

Futurity Tournament

The 3rd Round of the $20,000 Dick Andrews Futurity went down last Wednesday, with the field being narrowed from 35 to the Sweet 16 after the round was completed. The semifinals come our way Monday in Races 12 and 14.

JS Outlaw Legend (pictured) from the Koppe, Staats & Collins Team was the most impressive on this day, as the "Kansas Kid" flew out of the 8 box and smoked a tournament best 29.31 secs victory, winning by five lengths to stay unbeaten. Along with Legend, AllAboutTheFame from the Janie Carroll Kennel stayed unblemished in the Futurity as well, rolling over her competition by 7 lengths.

Here are the total points through the first three rounds of the Futurity:

JS Outlaw Legend - 45 pts

AllAboutTheFame - 45 pts

O Ya Sunflower - 40 pts

TC Carlos Gomez - 33 pts

Jack The Rat - 26 pts

Nb's GoodbyeGirl - 25 pts                              

Tc's Todd Frazier - 24 pts

Dutch Jasper - 24 pts   

Dutch Jackie - 24 pts  

TooTallBobbieD - 22 pts   

Nb's Lugar - 21 pts  

Royal Fling - 20 pts  

Twitter Episode - 20 pts   

Kc's Kevin - 18 pts  

Bubblicious - 17 pts                      

Amf Preposterous - 17 pts

The top 8 finishers after Monday's semifinals will go on to the 20K Final the day after Christmas.  Legend, Fame & O Ya Sunflower are a lock for the field, with GoGo Carlos Gomez sitting pretty as well.  All the other spots are wide open for all competitors.  Look for the Final 8 to be announced Monday afternoon after the semis on our social media feeds!

Ethel Gets #63 At Palm Beach

The "Living Legend" continues her outstanding career and seems to make a plethora of new fans each and every week.

Ethel Is Here from the Janie Carroll Kennel flew out of the 1 box during Superstar Saturday en route to her 63rd career victory at Palm Beach.  The box to wire victory was so typical Ethel.  First she laid in the grass and rubbed up against the wall before she was loaded into the box, something she does before every start.  Then she bolted to the lead and hugged the rail all around the track to victory, while her competition scattered all over trying to catch her.

Thank you also to Track Announcer Mike Jameson who wished me a Happy Birthday during Ethel's run and thank you to all the fans that wished me well over the weekend.  I appreciate all of you!

Here's the replay of Ethel's dominating romp:

http://www.trackinfo.com/video-box.jsp?raceid=gPB%2420161217A12

Two more entries into our self sponsored Daytona 550 National Championship were announced this past week.  Varoom Esme from Hollywood Park and formerly of Wheeling Downs grabbed a bid, along with Gt's Gin N Juice from Derby Lane.  The last five bids will be announced in the next few weeks as we count down to the Final on January 21st, 2017 at the Daytona Beach Kennel Club.

Two Champions Return To Racing

It's unusual that you see not one but two past champions return to the track, but that's exactly what we saw at Palm Beach this past week.

Co-Track Champion from last season Atascocita Camry from Suncoast Racing schooled on Sunday after a two month absence from the iconic oval in South Florida. The two time stakes finalist is starting off running the 545 yard sprint, but it will only be a matter of time before she is back home on the 660 yard "Rhonda" Course, which brought so many trips to the winners circle the past two seasons.

Also returning from a long vacation was 2015 Spring Puppy Stakes Champion Atascocita Clo also from Suncoast schooled in Wednesday mornings lineup.

Longshot of the Week

A new segment we are going to debut in this column is the biggest longshot of the week we saw.  This week it goes to Kiowa War Cloud from Ryan Racing who lit up the tote board at 34-1 in Monday's super sprint.  That deserves a wow.

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