Recently, AZUR restaurant & patio learned that a standard bred horse was named after our Lexington, Kentucky restaurant. Azur, the trotter, may have a chance to win the $700,000 New Jersey Sire Stakes Night of Champions next Friday night at the Meadowlands. We'll be watching from Lexington on August 2 if Azur qualifies for the race. Good luck Azur! See press details below.
Night of Champions is next goal for Azur
It is no blue-sky dream to think that Azur could be celebrating a victory in the $700,000 New Jersey Sire Stakes Night of Champions next Friday night at the Meadowlands.
The son of Self Possessed advances to the $175,000 New Jersey Sire Stakes Final for three-year-old trotting colts and geldings off of victories in the second and third preliminary rounds, improving his record to four wins and four seconds in nine starts in 2008.
This year, for the first time, the New Jersey Sire Stakes [NJSS] program will crown all of its three-year-old pacing and trotting champions at the Meadowlands on one night – June 20 -- with purses totaling $700,000.
Unraced at two, the New Jersey-sired son of Self Possessed – Victory Please has earned $48,040 for Verlin D. Yoder of Columbia City, IN, who had trained and driven the colt while he was racing at Hoosier Park in Indiana.
A one-time Lexington Selected Sale yearling purchase for $75,000, Azur changed hands last summer for $6,500 at the Tattersalls July Mixed Sale at the Meadowlands when Pinnacle Racing Stable of Canfield, OH purchased him from Brittany Farms and Jerry Silva. Yoder acquired the colt on November 10, 2007 at the Harrisburg Mixed Sale for $15,000.
In New Jersey, the trotter was entrusted to trainer Walter Carroll and driver Brian Sears. He made his Meadowlands debut on May 26, finishing second by three-quarters of a length in the opening round of NJSS on May 26. He stopped the clock in 1:54.3 in the second week of prelims and matched that career best in a nose tally over Kajan Kooker [Self Possessed] in the third leg on Thursday night [June 12].
Other prelim round winners eligible to join the final 10 include Celebrity Secret [Yankee Glide], Nautical Notion [Self Possessed], Fuel My Muscles [Muscles Yankee] and Cloud Casino [Dream Vacation].
The New Jersey Sire Stakes records for three-year-old trotters are 1:53.3 for colts, shared by New York Yank [by Yankee Glide, June 23, 2005] and Operation Lindy [by Enjoy Lavec, June 14, 2007] and 1:54.1 for geldings set by Green Day [Enjoy Lavec] on June 7, 2007.
Carol Hodes
