Lucky Bettor (Brett Miller) picked off a tiring rival while holding off a closing one Saturday night, winning Yonkers Raceway's $32,500 Open Handicap Pace for a second consecutive performance
.
Leaving from post position No. 6, he sat patiently in the rear of the room while Western Shore (Dan Dube) did all the early entertaining. That one two-moved to the lead, widening his way through fractions of :27.2, :56.2 and 1:25.1. Dragon Island (George Brennan), as the 9-5 choice, could not sustain an uncovered bid.
Western Shore owned a 2-3/4-length lead into the lane, but his strides began to shorten. A second-up Lucky Bettor and a third-over Mainland Key N (Eric Goodell) climbed into contention after getting away next-to-last and last, respectively.
Western Shore was about to give up the fight nearing the 1:54.2 mile marker. Lucky Bettor, with the jump on Mainland Key N, beat that longshot rival--46-1 despite winning his previous three starts--by a neck. Lucky Bettor traversed the mile-and-one-sixteenth in 2:02 Western Shore, River Shark (Larry Stalbaum) and Forensic Z Tam (Pat Lachance) completed the cashers.
For Lucky Bettor, a seven-year-old Bettors Delight gelding co-owned (as Burke Racing) by trainer Ron Burke, Weaver Bruscemi and JJK Stables, he returned $14 (fourth choice) for his second win in five seasonal starts. The exacta paid $321, with the triple returning $1,063.
(Yonkers Raceway)