Two Bangor horses will be carrying impressive streaks into the 33rd annual MSBOA Stakes Finals races at Scarborough Downs Sunday afternoon.

The richest day of the Maine harness racing season has more than $190,000 in purse money on the line. The feature events – the season championships for 2-year-old colt and filly pacers and trotters – match up the horses who finished among the top eight in each of the four divisions after eight preliminary races held through the 2006 season. Horses earn points based on their finish after each stakes race.

Leading the pack of filly pacers is Bangor’s Pembroke Primo with 362 points and Pembroke Lori-Lou is second with 275. Both are owned by William Varney of Bangor.

Varney’s stables also have top contenders in the trotters ranks as Pembroke Matron leads the fillies with 288 points and Pembroke Forward is just 17 points behind colt leader Dave’s Star of Falmouth (292).

The colt pacer leader is Cappucino Blaze of Kingfield (300).

The purses for the title races are as follows: $48,982 (colt trotters), $49,143 (filly pacers), $49,060 (colt pacers), and $47,476 (filly trotters). Post time is 1:30 Sunday.

Positive numbers for sport

The final figure still isn’t official, but with 276 mares bred confirmed through Thursday, 2006’s numbers promise to be yet another source of optimism in Maine’s harness racing industry.

Diann Perkins, president of the Maine Standardbred Breeders and Owners Association, is optimistic this will be the third straight year the number of mares bred has increased.

“We still have reports for 28 horses that haven’t been sent in,” Perkins said. “That tells me I think we’re going to go over last year’s figure, which was 302.”

Many consider the mares the most important and telling of all breeding figures recorded each year. Why?

“The mares are more telling because the mares are the ones who provide the foals,” Perkins explained. “That means more foals because you can’t have one without the other.

“The more mares, the more foals there will be and that means the more horses there will be available to race.”

And the greater the quantity, the greater the potential quality goes up, thereby increasing the odds for faster horses to gallop onto the circuit.

Sold! on harness racing

Any lingering doubts over the massive rebound of Maine’s harness racing industry were stampeded over this week with the rousing success of the annual Maine Standardbred Breeders and Owners Association/Pine Tree Sales yearling sale.

An unprecedented crowd organizers estimate at 300 to 400 people showed up to check out and bid on 77 horses offered at auction.

“This is the largest crowd I’ve ever seen since I started going to it and I’ve been going since it started,” said Perkins.

“We usually get about 150 to 200 people, so we had a very good turnout,” said auction-sale manager Carlton Chamberlin, who is also owner of Pine Tree Sales.

And they weren’t just window shopping.

“We sold all 77 of our horses,” Chamberlin said. “Brood mares brought more bids. Although they weren’t as high as we think they ought to be, we saw some improvement, but we still have a long way to go.

“One brought $12,000, one brought $11,500, and another one got $7,000. In the recent past, we struggled to get up to just $5,000.”

Another encouraging development was the presence of brand new faces who also weren’t there just to look.

“We saw some old new faces too as people who got out of [harness racing] years ago are getting back into it,” Chamberlin said. “I think it’s very encouraging and really points that the industry as a whole is on an upswing.”

Chamberlin sees no reason for it to be a short-lived development.

“I think we can look for sizable amounts of improvement, yes,” he said. “If people see they can get a return on their investments, they’re willing to invest more.”

Andrew Neff can be reached at 990-8205, 1-800-310-8600 or at aneff@bangordailynews.net