Suffolk has 120 entries on its 11-race card

Live racing at Suffolk Downs in East Boston, Mass., returns this Saturday and Sunday for the second weekend this year, with an 11-race card on Saturday that has 120 entries.

The weekend cards will be conducted in a festival-type setting featuring food trucks and ship-ins, the modus operandi for Suffolk Downs since the track was sold to a developer in 2017 after it was passed over for a casino license. This is the last year Suffolk is expected to host live racing, and its final weekend of racing is scheduled for June 29-30.

The last two cards promise full fields over a variety of conditions. There are two $50,000 stakes restricted to Massachusetts-bred horses on each card. Total purses over the two days of racing will be just over $500,000, with the purses subsidized by payments from casinos in the state.

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The featured race on Saturday is an optional-claiming event with a $55,000 purse at about one mile on the turf. The race drew a full field of 10 horses with four also-eligibles. The morning-line favorite is Wicked Freud, trained by Jason Servis. Wicked Freud is entered to be claimed for $25,000.

The last race on the card is the Last Dance Stakes, at one mile on the dirt. Dr. Blarney, a 6-year-old Massachusetts-bred gelding who has won 18 of 26 starts and $568,140 in purses for trainer Karl Grusmark, will be trying to win the race for the fourth year in a row. Tammi Pieramini, the popular New England jockey, has the mount.

Suffolk Downs has been conducting three to four weekends of racing a year since the track was sold, but the future development of the property means that no live racing will be conducted after the end of this month. The owners of Suffolk and the state’s horsemen’s group are attempting to relocate live racing to the Great Barrington Fair property for future years.

Suffolk’s owners are also attempting to keep open a location on the track’s grounds for full-card simulcasting, allowing the track to generate money for purses year round.