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Cal Expo Horsemen 'get away' With Extra Cash
Thursday, May 12, 2011 - by David Siegel, for the California Amateur Driving Club

Sacramento, CA --- The California Amateur Driving Club today announced the “TVG Get Away Invitational” late closing series to be held during the last three weekends of the Cal Expo meet in June. This unique series will be a true driving championship as all drivers will be assigned horses in each race on a 100 percent random basis.

Each week, a division of lower claiming boys and lower claiming mares will race and accumulate points in the same fashion that the randomly assigned drivers will do. At the end of the three-week series, roughly $8,500 in bonus monies will be distributed to the entrants. The top ten point finishers will receive between 30 percent and 5 percent of the bonus pool and every horse racing in all three legs will receive a starter’s bonus.

The Cal Expo race office will target a list of competitive lower level claiming horses and “invite” these horses to enter the event, committing to the three-week series, which will have purses of $2,000 each. Fields of eight-nine horses are expected to compete.

TVG, a long-time supporter of amateur racing in California, is the lead sponsor of the event, but in a unique move to bring more monies to the horsemen of Cal Expo, every driver entered in the event is required to have a sponsor. A package worth $450 has been assembled between the California State Fair and TrackMaster and will be sold by the drivers to well-wishing sponsors for $200 each.

The series has the strong support of the owners and trainers at the Sacramento, California, racetrack. Horsemen’s Association president and amateur driver Alan Kirschenbaum praised the support his group has shown for such events.

“There’s not an amateur program in North America that puts on more creative, interesting, and betable events than the CADC, with the East-West Challenge, the New Zealand competition, and this series, all in recent weeks. And through sponsorships and entry fees, our horsemen enjoy increased purses on these races, so it’s a complete win-win.”

Cal-Expo announcer and publicity director Scott Ehrlich added, “The California Amateur Club continues to come up with creative approaches to varying our program here on the west coast. This is a great way to close out our winter-spring meeting and I look forward to calling these events.”

For general information about the CADC, please visit www.thecadc.com.