Toronto, ON (My Sportsbook) - Leading standardbred Muscle Hill will start from the inside post for his last harness race, Saturday's $600,000 Breeders Crown three-year-old trot at Woodbine Race Course. Top three-year-old pacer Well Said heads the field for the $600,000 Breeders Crown pace.
The Breeders Crown night features a total of eight races for two and three- year-old harness horses.
Muscle Hill, driven by Brian Sears, will take on nine other three-year-old trotters in his final career start. The winner of the Hambletonian and Kentucky Futurity, the colt is trained by Greg Peck for owners Jerry Silva, TLP Stable, Southwind Farm and Muscle Hill Racing.
"It's flown by," Sears said about the 2009 season. "But I've enjoyed the experience with Muscle Hill even more than when I raced Rocknroll Hanover. I'm further along in my career and it's just a little more comfortable situation, I guess. I can appreciate it and enjoy it while it's going on."
Muscle Hill is perfect this year in 11 starts for $2.15 million. He has won 19 consecutive starts with career earnings of more than $2.97 million. The colt is only $291,962 from the harness racing record for earnings in a year, $2.44 million, set last year by three-year-old pacer Somebeachsomewhere. Donato Hanover holds the record of $2.33 million for a trotter.
"I just hope everything works out," Sears said. "I hope the track agrees with him. When you're shipping around all over the place, you have concerns. I have a lot of concerns. I definitely want to end on a good note. Hopefully, everything goes smoothly because it's been an amazing year.
"He's been such a great horse for me to drive and it's an honor to be a part of this, to be associated with a horse that will be in the record books like he will be. He's a really amazing horse."
Pacer Well Said, third in the current harness poll, has drawn post nine in the 10-horse field. The colt will be driven by Ron Pierce for trainer Steve Elliott.
Owned by Jeff Snyder and Lothlorien, Well Said won the North America Cup, Meadowlands Pace and Little Brown Jug this year. He is the winner in 10 of 13 starts in 2009 for $1.95 million.
The 2010 Breeders Crown, harness racing's $7 million year-end series, will take place on Saturday, October 9, 2010 instead of the previously announced date of November 6, at Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs in Wilkes-Barre, PA. The five-eighths-mile oval is the first to stage all 12 events on a single night.