TROIS-RIVIERES, Quebec – This Sunday the Hippodrome 3R will host its richest harness racing program of the 2017 season with the finals for the Breeders Cup Series for three-year-old's and the Future Stars Series for two-year-old's, with C$480,000 in purses.
There are eight championship events for the trotters and pacers, colts and fillies. The four Breeders Cup Finals will each race for C$65,000 and the four Future Stars Finals each go for C$55,000.
The attractive purses have also drawn some of the sports top drivers back to their "stomping grounds" including last year's leading driver at H3R, Louis-Philippe Roy, two-time O'Brien Award winner, Sylvain Filion and Trois-Rivieres native Daniel Dube. All three will be driving in most of the finals.
In fact, some of the races feature brothers Louis-Philippe and Pierre-Luc Roy and Sylvain and Justin Filion going head-to-head and one race has father-son, Yves and Sylvain Filion, battling against each other.
The Future Stars Final for two-year-old pacing colts begins the show in the first race where Stock starts from post two trainer Dany Fontaine and has won four of his five lifetime starts, the fastest a 1:54.2 victory in his elimination division of the Battle of Waterloo at Grand River Raceway.
The second race switches to the Breeders Cup Final for three-year-old trotting fillies featuring Capteur De Reve (post one) taking on Kinnder Dangerous (post five). Each have beaten the other in the preliminary rounds.
Two-year-old trotting fillies battle in their Future Stars Final in race three headlined by Precieuse CC (post one), who is seeking to make a clean sweep of the series. She has three wins in her four starts.
The Breeders Cup Final for three-year-old trotting fillies is the fifth race. Affirmee (post seven) won two of the three legs leading towards the final for trainer Maxime Velaye.
The sixth race features the Future Stars Final for two-year-old trotting colts. The race favorite is Nobodynojustic (post seven), who was a winner in the series but most recently has a win in 2:00 and a second in the Ontario Sire Stakes Grassroots Series.
Two-year-old pacing fillies go at it in the seven race Future Stars Final where the Guy Corbeil owned, Maxime Velaye trained entry of Lit De Rose (post two) and Lune Blue (post five) head the field. Lit De Rose is the strongest of the two, having won her last two starts, the fastest a 1:59.1 romp at H3R in the last leg of the series.
The fastest of the finals will be the eighth race final of the Breeders Cup for three-year-old pacing colts. Here is where last year's champion and track record holder, Wildriverbumblebee, starts from post seven and in his last start set a lifetime mark of 1:53 in the Ontario Sire Stakes Grassroots at Georgian Downs. This may also be the toughest division as nearly every starter in the field has been racing very well.
The ninth race is the last of the finals with the three-year-old pacing fillies battling it out in the Breeders Cup Final. Y S Tallia (post four) and Yaris Bayama (post three) renew their rivalry from the preliminary rounds.
Post time is 12:30 pm. For more information, visit www.quebecjockeyclub.com.
From the Quebec Jockey Club