April 5, 2025, by Chris Tully, for First Tracks Cumberland
CUMBERLAND, ME – One of Maine’s favorite daughters, Gowestyounggrace, returned to action in preparation for her upcoming 4-year-old season, and driver Walter Case Jr. took four of nine Cumberland Raceway qualifiers during Saturday’s (April 5) opening round of harness racing in the Pine Tree State.
Owned and bred by Sharon and Fred Ward Jr., Maine’s champion sophomore pacing filly of 2024, Gowestyounggrace was teamed up with her regular reinsman Dave Ingraham to ‘reign in’ her competition in the all-distaff event. Scoring from post seven the daughter of Western Maverick got away fifth and sat chilly into a 1:00 first half. Tipping first over past the five-eighths pole, ‘Grace’ inherited some cover as Aaron Hall popped the deuce with Maggie At Bat around the 1:30 three-quarter panel.
Pushing three-wide around the final turn Ingraham had ‘Grace’ out rolling, passing the leaders with every stride, leading track announcer Mike Cushing to exclaim, “showing her heels to the field.” The pair tripped the timer in 2:00.4 by a measured length over pacesetter Virtual Success. Trained by Fred Ward Jr., Gowestyounggrace earned $150,327 with 12 wins in 16 starts last season.
Walter Case Jr., who was last year’s third leading dash winning driver at Cumberland, was first across the wire on four occasions during the day’s qualifying races. Casey scored with Empereurthebest FR (2:05.2) in the opening trot for trainer James Dunn, and Miki De Vie (1:59.1), Nagle (2:01.1) and Buerger (2:03.1) who were all trained by Michelle Lefebvre.
Kevin Switzer Jr., the second leading driver of 2024 copped three races on the card, including: Whatchagonnadoboo (2:02, Erik Bickmore); Control The Piper (2:00) and Warrawee Yale (1:58), both trained by Gerald MacKenzie Jr.
Joe Burke, the president of the Maine Amateur Driving Club, got the job done against the professionals, steering his own Bo Master to a quarter length pocket trip score in 2:01.1. The 11-year-old son of Sportmaster is trained by Bob Marston.
Horsemen should note that opening weekend’s double draw for Friday and Saturday (April 11 & 12), now has the box closing at 12 pm (noon, EDT) on Tuesday (April 8). The condition sheet has been posted on the USTA’s online entry system.
First Track’s Cumberland Spring/Summer meet will continue throughout the Spring and early Summer months with regular racing on Friday and Saturday each weekend. First post is slated for 3:15 pm (EDT) during the extended pari-mutuel meeting, which runs through August 2.
