The Friday night feature at Miami Valley was the $22,500 Mares Open Pace, won by Pace Baby Pace and driver Chris Page for the second straight week, but the most anticipated races were a pair of divisions going 5/8ths of a mile dashes in the first leg of the Howard Beissinger Memorial Medley.

The second leg of the annual Beissinger Memorial will go a standard mile, then the third and final $25,000 championship leg will go 1-1/4 miles on Friday, Feb. 22. Nominated horses could not have raced for a purse over $15,000 in their last three overnight starts.

Compelling (LeWayne Miller) won the most exciting split, racing in the back half of the pack throughout most of the one lap contest before charging from sixth to first in the stretch drive. The Next Triumph (Trace Tetrick) went nose-to-nose with Compelling most of the stretch, but settled for second in the end. Pink Tulip (Jason Brewer) got up to garner the show dough.

Verlin Yoder owns Compelling, who he shipped back from Florida to the LeWayne Miller barn early in January. She has responded well to the cooler weather by hitting the board in all four of her starts to commence the new season.

Shake It Mary (Dan Noble) copped the other division in 1:11, giving the distaff set a sweep of the Beissinger’s first leg action. In this heat, the front end held up as Noble cut the fractions of :27.1 and :56 for the first half-mile, then tacked on a :15 final eighth to win it. Lets Go Bucks (Jeremy Smith) made a valiant late rush to secure a solid second place finish, while Perfect Chapter AS (Page) was next to cross the line.

Sherif Cunmulaj conditions Shake It Mary for the Rushcreek Stable. After a productive 2020 campaign, the five-year-old daughter of Dontyouforgetit has put together an impressive three-race win streak of late.

Racing resumes Saturday with the first leg of the Bill Dailey Memorial Medley for pacers will commence with a pair of 5/8ths mile dashes.

(Miami Valley Raceway)