Ready to race!

Claude Levesque is the president of the Quebec Jockey Club, a prominent harness racing owner and breeder, and he is excited for the start of the 2021 race season at the Hippodrome 3R.

“There is not that much to say,” Levesque laughed. “Except that we are very excited to get our race meet underway and that we are ready to race!

The Hippodrome 3R opening day Friday card gets underway with a special post time of 5:30 pm. A free race program is available at www.hippodrome3r.ca.

“The weather forecast for Friday is excellent,” Levesque added. “Our racetrack surface is in prime shape. We have ten races, all with full fields of eight horses and I know that our horse people are ready to return to racing.

“All that we are missing is our race fans,” Levesque said. “And maybe we will be able to add them by mid-summer, but we are not counting on that. It would be great as racing is not the same without race fans cheering. I am glad we are able to start racing. We will be the only track in all of Canada racing Friday.

“Most important,” Levesque added. “Is that we will continue to do Covid protocols in our race paddock. I am proud of all our employees and our horse people who did safe practice as we did not have one Covid case all last season and we want the same again this season.

“We also want to see how many horses are entered for our qualifying races on Saturday,” Levesque explained. “If there are a lot more horses coming here to qualify, we might even consider racing two days next week, Friday and Sunday. But we have to wait and see on that.”

For opening day, there are two Preferred pacing and one Preferred trot on the race card.

The 7th race Preferred 1 pace features nine-time race winner last year, Mickeymakesomespeed from post five for driver Richard Simard and trainer Michel Allard. Mickeymakesomespeed won his qualifying race last week at H3R in 1:59.4 by three and one-quarter lengths and takes on Big Petes Style (post 1), also a qualifying winner last week in 1:59.4, Woodbine invaders Solid Man (post 6) and Take The Deal (post 7).

The Preferred-Handicap Trot is race five and spotlighted is the top mare, Kinnder High Class (post 6), who won 10 of 13 starts and set a track record last season at H3R. She is the lone mare in the field and goes against track record holder Wildwild Men (post 8), Franks Angel (post 7) and Pompano Park shipper, Captain Krupnik (post 3).

Trainer Francis Richard, who will be gunning for his fifth straight training title at H3R, is back in action along with last season’s leading driver, Pascal Berube.

For more information, visit www.hippodrome3r.ca. The website is in both French and English.