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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Playfair Weekend Begins With Simulcasts Today At 3

Two stakes events, the KGA Lilac Lady Handicap and the Inland Empire Marathon, will highlight the action on Thanksgiving weekend as Playfair Race Course puts the finishing touches on the 1995 Spokane horse racing season.

Racing is scheduled today at 3 p.m., Saturday and Sunday at 1:30 and Monday at 3, wrapping up a three-month meet that will rank as Playfair’s shortest since 1969. The Lilac Lady will match seven fillies and mares at 1 miles on Saturday. The Marathon, one of the track’s most popular events, will have its 58th running Sunday at the distance of 2 miles.

Stakes races from Hollywood Park will be part of the race programs today, Saturday and Sunday.

Closing weekend also begins with a twin trifecta carryover of $37,402. There is no twin trifecta today, but the special wager will be offered on Saturday’s eighth and ninth races.

This year’s average daily attendance, wagering and purse figures are expected to match or exceed the simulcast portion of the 1994 season. Because the current meet is the first with statewide simulcasting on every program, the wagering average will topple the all-time record set in 1993.

Playfair will complete its 59th season after tiptoeing through a minefield of the second latest dates in its history and the nationwide shortage of thoroughbred horses.

Jockey Jason Eads and trainer Bruce Wagar will be crowned as statistical champions on Monday, when the track also will announce awards for the season’s top horses and the leading owners.

Canadian invader Pass Forward and 3-year-olds Sassy Wake and Market My Way are likely favorites in the Lilac City.

Pass Forward was a recent winner in Calgary. Sassy Wake, runner-up in the $21,680 All West Derby, has won three races this season. Market My Way has won four, including a front-running sprint triumph over Sassy Wake earlier this month.

Frost Gothe Peach will try to join the select group of horses that have won seven or more races during a single Playfair season when he goes postward against five rivals in the Inland Empire Marathon. Two former winners, Shawn Boy and Mackee Deluxe, also will start along with Jackie’s Tasso, which finished third in 1994. Shawn Boy won the 1993 renewal then finished second as Mackee Deluxe rolled wire-to-wire over a muddy track last fall.

Eads enters the final four days of racing with 80 victories in 44 days. Runner-up Darrell Brinkerhoff has nailed down second place with 62 winners. Wagar, previously a winner in 1988, has saddled 28 winners..

History lesson

The last Playfair season as short as 48 days was the 44-day session in 1969. The only meet with a later closing date was the 1990 session, which was halted after three races on Sunday, Dec. 2, one day short of its scheduled finale.

Her track

Instead of Cal, a 6-year-old Washington-bred mare that races for Ron Steele and John Montgomery of Spokane, improved her career record at Playfair to a dazzling 11 victories in 27 starts by going wire-to-wire in last Sunday’s sixth race.

Simulcasting set

The Playfair clubhouse will open for simulcast racing from Yakima Meadows when the Central Washington track opens its winter season next Friday. Racing is scheduled for Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, beginning at noon.

Notes

Canadian jockey Perry Winters, who rode four winners last Friday, has returned home to be with his mother, who will undergo surgery this weekend… . Wilbur Brooke, who began his career with Daily Racing Form more than four decades ago, retires at the end of the season after working the Playfair meet for more than a quarter century… . Robert Munoz, suspended seven days after his winning mount Flashy Maxi Lou was disqualified in last Saturday’s third race, has headed for Sam Houston Park in Houston… . Jeremy Best, who had been booking mounts for Munoz, will return to the saddle for closing weekend. … Veteran trainer Jerry Bosequette has returned to duty after being hospitalized with pneumonia. … Longtime owner-trainer, Howard Lake, 74, died Monday after a long illness.