SCARBOROUGH – Harness racing at Scarborough Downs this weekend will be reaping the fruits of Bangor’s thriving slots operation.

Track officials conducted the draw Thursday morning for Sunday’s $300,000 Maine Standardbred Breeders Stakes 3-Year-Old Trotting and Pacing finals, which they are billing as the richest day in the state’s harness racing history.

The four stakes races – for colt trotters, filly trotters, colt pacers and filly pacers – each will sport a purse of more than $70,000. By contrast, the same races last year had a total prize fund of about $120,000, according to Susan A. Higgins, director of marketing and media relations for Scarborough Downs; the growth, she and other track officials said, has been almost totally attributable to the 3 percent of slots revenue mandated by the Legislature to be used to enhance purses for special “sire stakes races” for horses bred at Maine farms.

A racino, a harness-racing track that includes slot machines, has been drawing crowds to Bangor since opening in 2005 after being approved by Maine voters two years earlier. The racino, called Hollywood Slots at Bangor, and its parent company, Penn National Gaming Inc., also have paid out about $3.5 million to Maine tracks since last December to boost other harness purses, help defray operating costs and allow for improvements at the state’s two commercial tracks.

It is located down the street from Bangor Raceway, within the mandated 2,000-foot radius of the track.

On Thursday, owners, trainers and breeders flocked to the Downs Club at the Scarborough track for a combined drawing and news conference to promote Sunday’s races. As each starting post position was drawn and matched to a horse, some in the crowd broke into wide smiles and grabbed for their cell phones, while others, less favored by Lady Luck, moaned softly.

One horse drawing a good post was Eric the Enemy, which will be competing in the pacing event for colts. Co-owned by Francis Vallee of Lewiston and Frank Hiscock of Livermore, who is also its trainer, Eric the Enemy notched the No. 3 hole, meaning it will run less of a risk of either being boxed in along the rail or “parked” and forced to run extra lengths on the outside at the half-mile oval.

Hiscock, a co-breeder of the horse, along with Esau Cooper of Auburn, did not attend the drawing, but his brother, Allie Hiscock, was jubilant for him.

“He’ll be jumping up and down with joy. He will probably pass out” when he learns of the favorable placement, said Allie Hiscock, a top trainer who himself drew good posts for two pacers, Westvirginia Ginny and Marci Marci, he will have competing Sunday as a combined entry in the fillies race. Westvirginia Ginny will go from the No. 3 post; Marci Marci from No. 4.

“You can’t beat that. I’m very happy,” Allie Hiscock said.

Post time for Sunday’s racing is noon, with the featured events taking place later in the afternoon.