The 50th season of live racing at Assiniboia Downs comes to a dramatic close Sunday with a lucky fan being awarded $50,000 and the oldest jockey in North America winning his third consecutive riding title.
The final weekend of live racing also features some of the biggest stakes races since Derby Day. The $75,000 Matron for the best older female horses races Saturday and the $75,000 Gold Cup for the best older horses goes Sunday, as does the Winnipeg Futurity for the best 2-year-olds.
Jockey Alan Cuthbertson, 61, goes into the final weekend of racing with 100 wins from 417 starts, way ahead of his rivals, although Rohan Singh, in second place, has a win percentage just two per cent lower than Cuthbertson’s. Ardell Sayler appears headed for his ninth leading trainer title.
The $50,000 giveaway Sunday, a huge sum of money for the non-profit Manitoba Jockey Club, was offered as a prize to draw more attention to racing on the racetrack’s 50th anniversary and to give fans a big target to shoot for when playing a free game called “show parlay challenge” which involves predicting horses to finish in the money in three consecutive races.
A total of 140 finalists will be eligible to receive the large prize. Under the watchful eye of independent auditors BDO Dunwoody, the names of contestants will be drawn from the pool of finalists and matched with horses in the final race of the 70-day meet Sunday afternoon. The winner of the $50,000 is the contestant whose horse wins the race.
With the conclusion of live racing, simulcast racing from as many as 20 other race tracks will be turned up to a new level. Of particular interest will be the opening next Wednesday of the Santa Anita meet held for the first time over an Australian-inspired synthetic track called Pro-Ride. The biggest race days of the year, the Breeders’ Cup Championships, will be held at Santa Anita Oct. 24 and 25.
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