Union Fair has two remaining days to race to complete its week-long race meet in conjunction with the 131st edition of Maine’s Annual Wild Blueberry Festival Fair. Today at Union, the track will feature the 3-year-old pacing colt and gelding divisions of the Maine Standardbred Breeders Stakes along with a special exhibition of minature horses racing around the Union Fair track. Post times at Union are 3 p.m. today and 2 p.m. Saturday.

After Union, everything moves 20 miles down the road for nine days of racing at Windsor Fair, beginning Sunday, Aug. 27, through Monday, Sept. 4, Labor Day.

Windsor Fair, billed as “one of Maine’s greatest country fairs,” is also one of Maine’s most successful racing fairs in terms of parimutuel handle. Last year, Windsor’s total parimutuel handle of more than three-quarters of a million dollars ($892,262) for nine days of racing made their daily average more than $95,000, second only to Fryeburg Fair in parimutuel handle.

Dan Wilson, director of racing at Windsor, has veteran officials returning to his race track. Clayton Smith returns as race secretary, along with Ken Sumner, assistant. The remaining Windsor racing officials include: Roger Smith, Jr., presiding judge; Sheridan Smith and George Hickman (chairman of the New Hampshire racing commission) assistant judges; Twila Mahar, program director/charter; Joe Gunn, race starter and Lloyd Johnson, announcer.

Smith said this week that among the many feature races at Windsor will be the Arthur McGee Memorial Pace, an elimination series with each leg carrying a $2,750 purse and a final on Saturday, Sept. 2, for $5,000. Sunday and Monday race programs will also feature the Maine Fair Classic and on Labor Day, the $5,000 John J. Loiko Memorial Invitational Pace.

Windsor will also feature The Maine Sire Stakes, racing 2-year-old pacing colts on Sunday, opening day; 2-year-old trotters and pacing fillies on Monday; 3-year-old trotters on Wednesday; 3-year-old pacing fillies on Thursday and the 3-year-old pacing colts on Friday.

Post times for Windsor’s twilight racing are: 2 p.m. Sunday; Monday through Friday, 3 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, (Sept. 2-3) 1:30 p.m. and Monday, Labor Day, 1 p.m.

Scarborough Downs will celebrate its 50th birthday of harness racing in Maine with a special day on Sunday, Sept. 10, according to Kathryn Ralston, publicity director at Scarborough. In addition to special events, both on the track and off, Scarborough will also celebrate its anniversary by featuring the 2-year-old Maine Sire Stakes finals. One of the feature races will include presentation of a winner’s blanket by Jack Ginetti, president of the New England Harness Writers Association.

The NEHWA will also be at Cumberland Fair on Sunday, Oct.1, to induct Clayton Smith and myself into the NEHWA Hall of Fame and Harold C. Ralph of Waldoboro will receive the President’s Award at an awards dinner. Cumberland will receive recognition from the NEHWA as the USTA’s Blue Ribbon Fair of the Year. Awards will also be presented to Scarborough Downs on their 50th anniversary; Fryeburg Fair for its 150th anniversary and Bangor Raceway for its continuing efforts on behalf of Maine harness racing.

PACING BITS — Open the record books for a re-write. Last Saturday, at Skowhegan State Fair, as racing patrons waited in anticipation for the $5,000 Walter H. Hight Memorial Pace, Kim Ireland gave the crowd a reason to get excited. In the fifth race, he trotted Pine Magic to a new trotting record at the Skowhegan track. With the rail position, Pine Magic, the 4-year-old son of Giant Victory, owned by Lew Hayden of Poteet, Texas, and trained by Wendy Glaster, not only trotted a new track record of 2 minutes, but also set a new lifetime mark for himself on a half-mile track. The previous trotting mark at Skowhegan was 2:00.2, held by C. Paul Mullen’s outstanding trotter, Westridge Gossip.

It’s the second trotting mark set this year on the fair circuit. Last month, John Davidson trotted Collier St. John to a 2:02.1 victory at Northern Maine Fair in Presque Isle, eliminating the trot record of 2:03.1, set by Mic Mac Express in 1998. And guess who was chasing Pine Magic home at Skowhegan in the record-setting mile? It was Mic Mac Jack, another outstanding trotter from John and Ninon Lohnes’ Mic Mac Stable in Union.