They were one class apart and took different paths to victory, but the commonality between Quick Shot and Bet You was they both came up big in the top two featured paces at Plainridge Park on Monday afternoon.
In the $14,000 Winners-Over Handicap pace driver Drew Campbell reversed his strategy of recent weeks by leaving hard and fast with Quick Shot to take early command of the race. Once on the point, Quick Shot got to the quarter in a blistering :25.1 and had everyone seated. As they headed down the front stretch, Campbell grabbed two handfuls of leather and backed off the second quarter to :30.4, stacking up the trailers and coaxing Moonlight Artist (Jim Hardy) to begin an outer flow.
Moonlight Artist continued to advance but as soon as he got within a length of the leader, Campbell let Quick Shot out a notch and he immediately opened up a three-length advantage. Rounding the last turn, Quick Shot was under moderate urging from Campbell and coasted home to a length victory in 1:51.1.
It was the seventh win of the year and third top class win in a row at Plainridge Park for Quick Shot ($5.00), who is owned by Kathleen Brewer and trained by John Bowman. Quick Shot now has $66,860 in earnings for the year.
In the $12,000 conditioned pacing secondary feature, Bet You (Eddie Davis, Jr.) sat fifth off the pace, watching Kenrick N (Ron Cushing) and Electric Western (Greg Merton) battle it out to the half before following the outside cover of Ace Of Clubs (Shawn Gray) to the head of the stretch where he tipped three-deep and exploded with pace to the wire to win by a length in 1:51.
In his first Plainridge start of 2018, Bet You ($13.20) got his third win of the year and came away with a new seasonal mark. Bet You is owned by Scott Dillon and is trained by Joseph Nelson.
Plainridge Park defending dash winning driver Greg Merton is not accustomed to going off at 50-1, but that is what happened in race four and Merton made the most of it.
Merton manoeuvred Mr Blissful, who had spent the last three weeks racing at Yonkers, from worst at the quarter to first the wire and paid $102.80 for the win.
Eddie Davis, Jr. led all drivers for wins on Monday, visiting the track photographer three times.
Racing resumes on Tuesday afternoon at Plainridge Park with a Wicked Hi-5 carryover pool of $5,210 in the sixth race.
(Standardbred Owners of Massachusetts)