An 11-year-old harness racing horse, the sport’s richest-ever with $6.9 million in career earnings, is set to kick off his 2015 season Saturday night at Yonkers Raceway in Westchester, NY.
Foiled Again, who some call the Wonder Horse, leads 35 of the best Free-For-Allers into Empire City Casino’s historic half-mile oval for the opening round of the George Morton Levy Memorial Pacing Series, acccording to the raceway.
Five, $50,000, seven-horse divisions are slated, and Foiled Again—who won this series consecutively in 2009 and 2010—draws outside of his six rivals in the power-packed third event. Regular pilot Yannick Gingras will be at the helm.
The Dragon Again gelding, co-owned (as Burke Racing) by (trainer) Ron Burke, Weaver Bruscemi and JJK Stables, is making his 225th career purse start Saturday. He won six of 26 starts a season ago and more than $860,000.
This season’s debut comes after a pair of winning Meadowlands qualifiers.
“I was very happy with both (qualifiers),” Gingras said. “He didn’t go that much (1:53) in the second one, but the track was dead and no one went very fast. He never changes. He knows when he can be lazy and he knows when it’s time to go to work out there.
“He’s amazing. There’s no reason to think he can’t do at 11 what he did at 8 or 9 or 10,” Gingras said. “He’s in tough (Saturday), but they’re gonna know he’s there.”
When he was 9, observers were marveling at his capacity, according to an ESPN story http://espn.go.com/horse-racing/story/_/id/10084199/foiled-again-harness-racing-grand-old-man.
So to see him launch down the track again at 11, fans are excited.Those looking to stall Foiled Again’s 84th win photo includes last season’s Levy winner, P H Supercam (Jason Bartlett, post 1) and runner-up Apprentice Hanover (Jody Jamieson, post 2). “Foiled” cut the mile in that race before fading to third.