Among the most innovative racetracks in Ontario, Georgian Downs has crafted two nights of racing in the coming weeks that have fans buzzing.
This Saturday, June 21, the best three-year-old trotters and pacers in Ontario will converge on the Innisfil oval for 10 Gold Series Eliminations, with the top nine from each division returning Saturday, June 28 for their respective $120,000 Gold Final.
A total of $400,000 will be on the line this weekend, with the purse swelling to over $1 million dollars the following Saturday, when the Gold Finals will be paired with the finals of the track’s Masters Series for aged horses.
“We planned the Masters Series around the OSS Gold Finals, we wanted to make one big night out of it,” says Jackie Warner, Georgian Downs’ Marketing and Public Relations Manager. “We started working on it last November.”
Among the outstanding horses making their way to the track for this Saturday’s elimination round are last season’s freshman trotting colt champion Windsong Espoir; three-year-old pacing colts Keystone Horatio and Deuce Seelster, who captured a Burlington Stake division and North America Cup elimination respectively; three-year-old pacing fillies Has An Attitude, who captured her Fan Hanover elimination, and world record holder Voelz Hanover; and three-year-old trotting filly Warrawee June, an Elegantimage elimination winner and runner-up in the $588,706 final.
Combine the exceptional calibre of the Ontario-sired sophomores with their aged peers in the Saturday, June 28 event Georgian Downs has dubbed ‘Gold Rush,’ and Warner expects fans will be treated to a night that will go down in Canadian racing history.
“Last night (June 17), and last Tuesday night (June 10), we had the first two legs of the Masters Series and it was incredible racing, absolutely incredible,” she explains.
“We’ve never had a night with $1 million in purses. The best horses in North America, and the top drivers, are going to be here. It will be an outstanding night of racing.”
A handful of locally owned horses are hoping to grab a piece of the Gold Rush pie, and the first hurdle is a top finish in this Saturday’s elimination round.
