The $30,000 Bill Vallandingham Pace, luring the dynamic duo of Divine Art and Graceful Horizon; and a $20,000 California Sire Stakes headed by The Minnesota Kid get top billing Saturday night at Cal Expo.
Watch and Wager LLC will present 11 races on the penultimate card of the meet with things getting underway at 6:51 p.m.
Divine Art is going in razor-sharp form at the moment for her owner/driver/trainer Gerry Longo with four trips to the winner’s circle from her last five starts.
The 8-year-old Outrageous Art mare, who has 41 victories from her 108 career appearances, accounted for the Alan Kirschenbaum on April 5 and turned in a sensational mile to capture last week’s Kirk Breed after making a power brush to the lead down the backstretch.
Graceful Horizon looms the main rival as she eyes her seventh snapshot from 13 trips to the post this year for Set The Pacing Racing LLC and driver/trainer Nick Roland.
Her most recent tally came two weeks ago in the Open as she was able to carve out some modest fractions and was able to hold safe over a charging Divine Art that evening.
In the Sire Stakes, The Minnesota Kid is a son of Karpathian Kid out of the Camluck mare Docdor Libby who is owned by Stephanie Ann Longo, takes his lessons from Jose Castillo and will be guided by Luke Plano. He is looking to make a clean sweep of the stakes events for the 3-year-old pacing colts.
