Freehold Raceway opens summer-fall meet Friday Cane Pace on Labor Day to highlight season’s harness racing action

Freehold Raceway opens
summer-fall meet Friday
Cane Pace on Labor Day
to highlight season’s
harness racing action

Peter Biondo of Millstone Township will be in action at Raceway Park, Old Bridge, in an NHRA Federal-Mogul Drag Racing Series event this weekend.

FREEHOLD — On Sept. 4, the Cane Pace, the first jewel in pacing’s Triple Crown, will highlight Freehold Raceway’s 2000 summer-fall meet which gets under way Friday afternoon.

This will be the 46th edition of the Cane Pace and for the third year in a row historic Freehold Raceway is hosting the harness racing Triple Crown event which carries a $350,000 purse.

The Cane Pace has a list of legendary winners that includes Albatross (1971) and Cam Fella (1982) and Triple Crown winners like Niatross (1980), Brett Hanover (1965), Adios Butler (1959), Most Happy Fella (1970) and Western Dreamer (1997).

The Cane Pace winners since the race moved to Freehold Raceway have been Shady Character (with Mike Lachance driving) in 1998 and Blissfull Hall (Jack Pierce) in 1999. Blissfull Hall’s 1:51.4 victory established a Freehold Raceway track record for 3-year-old pacers.

The Cane Pace action will actually begin on Aug. 26 with the $100,000 estimated elimination races if the field is more than 12 horses.

The Labor Day card will be a lucrative one at Freehold Raceway. In addition to the $350,000 Cane Pace, the track will host the $150,000 Shady Daisy for 3-year-old filly pacers and the $200,000 Lou Babic Memorial Pace for 2-year-olds as well for purses totaling $700,000.

The nation’s best sophomores will again be at Freehold when the track hosts the 25th annual James B. Dancer Memorial Pace on Nov. 18, which will carry an estimated purse of $300,000. Th Dancer has become one of the major stakes events in the country and is named for the patriarch of the famous New Egypt harness racing family.

In its first 24 years, the event has welcomed the likes of Niatross (1980), Abercrombie (1978), Nihilator (1985), Artsplace (1991) and Cam’s Card Shark (1994) to the winner’s circle. This year’s race could help decide the top 3-year-old pacer in the country.

Other events on the 2000 summer-fall schedule include the $150,000 Battle of Freehold for 2-year-old pacers on Sept. 23; the $275,000 Classic Oaks, a 1¹/4-mile race for 3-year-olds and up trotters on Sept. 23; the $100,000 Charles Smith Trot for 3-year-old colts and geldings on Oct. 27; and the $90,000 New Jersey Futurity for 2-year-old pacers on Oct. 28.

Freehold’s Cat Manzi, a Cane Pace winner back in 1996 with Scoot To Power, is the defending driving champion. Manzi picked up his 11th driving title at Freehold Raceway during the winter-spring meet when he drove 162 winners and won more than $700,000 in purses. He won 22.8 percent of his starts — tops among all regulars at the track.

Manzi appears refreshed and eager to chase after a 12th driving title.

"It’s nice to get a break from racing day-night doubleheaders," he said, "but now I’m ready to get back to Freehold. I’ve always enjoyed driving there and each time it opens, it’s like coming home."

Manzi, 50, is as sharp as ever. At the Meadowlands, he has scored 82 wins and earned more than $2 million in purses.

Since beginning his career in 1968, Manzi has amassed more than 8,000 wins. His finest season was 1989 when he accumulated 687 wins.

Freehold Raceway will present live racing Tuesday through Saturday for the summer-fall meet with the exception being the big Labor Day program. Simulcasting continues seven days and nights a week and features harness and thoroughbred racing from tracks all across North America.

Post time at Freehold is 1 p.m.