Drivers to compete without whips for one race at Indy Downs

Indiana Downs will play host to four $80,000 Indiana Sire Stakes finals Saturday but the most intriguing race on the card is an $8,000 event where the drivers will compete without the use of whips. It is carded as the seventh race on the 13-race program, attracting a full field of 10.

“It wasn’t hard at all,” Scott Peine, director of racing at the Shelbyville track, said of filling the race and five others listed on the condition sheet that could have also gone without whips. “Most of the races marked were filled, it was just a matter of making the decision on what to use. There were no conditional entries and I never really heard a lot of complaints. I think a majority of the people were willing to try it.”

The seventh race, for non-winners of $3,501 in the last five starts, would have traditionally offered a purse of $6,500. It has been increased to an $8,000 purse without the use of whips. The contest offers a strong group of pacers, including John Adams, a winner of more than $380,000, the Erv Miller-trained Looselipssinkships, Rick Schaut’s Murph’s Tiki Bar and Indiana Sires Stakes champion Blueridge Finance.

“It’s a good group of horses with some class horses in there,” Peine added. “It should be interesting.”

Indiana Downs will place a note at the top of the program page to notify bettors that the race will be contested without the use of whips. Proper notification will be added through a crawl on the simulcast signal.

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