1982 Meadowlands Pace
"There's a backstory there as I had Merger, who I owned part of and trained as well. He set a world record at the end of his two-year-old year and was syndicated and we were really expecting big things from him. We were pointing him to the Meadowlands Pace and he just came up with a real poor performance in the eliminations. I was disappointed and devastated that he raced so poor.
"The reason I was driving Hilarion is Billy O'Donnell was driving most of Jerry Silverman's horses at the time and he got two in [the final]: Rompin Home and Hilarion. I think Rompin Home drew inside and Hilarion drew the 10, so obviously Billy picked the horse that drew better....and at that point, I was just happy to have a horse in the race. The 10 hole is better than watching it!
"Going into the race, Hilarion was basically coming out of non-winners of three race life. He hadn't been a stake horse. I had the 10 hole, my plan was just to take him back and try to get a cheque. I looked over before the gate folded and nobody was on the gate. I just spoke to him and I got crossed over right before the first turn...and I got covered up right away and sat in the two hole. No Nukes made a big move, came three wide down the backstretch. He wasn't a very easy horse or handy horse to drive, and he made this big move. And around the last turn the cover couldn't keep up to him and I was able to slide out on his back and I didn't have to move until mid-stretch I did just get up to beat him.
"Although it was new it had prestige about it already. It was a big race immediately."