WILKES-BARRE PA – On Sunday night The Downs at Mohegan Sun Pocono will host the second preliminary round of Pennsylvania-sired stakes competition for two-year-old pacing fillies, with three divisions of a Sire Stakes event worth $184,240, and five divisions of Stallion Series action worth $20,000 each.
In the tenth race Sire Stakes division, Sweet Ace, the fastest two-year-old of 2019 regardless of gender or size of track, will start from post six for driver Dexter Dunn, trainer Ron Burke, and owners Burke Racing Stable LLC and Weaver Bruscemi LLC, Lawrence Karr, and Jason Melillo. At The Meadows last Saturday afternoon on the big Adios card, the daughter of Sweet Lou – One Ace Too Many laid off of spirited fractions, then came on in the stretch to stop the timer in 1:50.4 in an Arden Downs division, her second straight victory after triumphing in the first round of the Sire Stakes.
The other two first round Sire Stakes winners start side-by-side in the fifth race PaSS division. Shouldabeenatd (Sweet Lou – Breakheart Pass), who set most of the pace in the Sweet Ace race and had taken her Sire Stakes start in 1:52.2, begins from post two for driver Yannick Gingras and trainer Ron Burke, while post three finds Lyons Sentinel (Captaintreacherous – Tulu Hanover) going for driver David Miller and trainer Jim King Jr. after a Sires triumph in 1:53.
The Stallion Series action sees all four first round winners returning for the Pocono contest. Two of them will meet each other in the ninth race StS section: Aplomp Hanover (post one, driver David Miller), who followed up her Stallion Series win with a triumph in an Arden Downs division, and The Party’s Rockin (post six, driver Tyler Buter), who scored a 14-1 upset in the first round. The other winners both begin from post position five for trainer Jim King Jr.: Lyons Sweetjen in race four and Shotgun Persuasion in race eight.
First of the fourteen races set for Pocono on Sunday evening is scheduled for 7 p.m.