The final night of racing in 2021 at The Meadowlands featured a big 20-cent Pick-5 carryover – and payout – as well as a big night for driver Scott Zeron, who scored four times on the 14-race Friday night program.

The action in the Pick-5 was fast and furious as a $38,923.56 carryover led to $231,849.96 in “new money” being poured into the pot for a total pool of $270,773. The excitement gained big-time momentum after driver Johnathan Ahle guided 57-1 shot Galactic Galleon N to victory lane in the second race GSY Final, and when the will pays were posted before the start of the fifth race, there were three possibilities of single-ticket winners walking away with better than $230,000.

The big payoff wasn’t to be, but those who cashed did not complain.

Perfectboy Hanover and Zeron took the fifth race at odds of 4-1 to complete the Pick-5, which returned $27,565.46. Other than the 50-1 shot, the odds of the other four winners were 5-1, 5-1, 5-1 and 4-1. There were no winning favourites.
The 20-cent Pick-6 saw a modest $6,131 carryover grow to a total pool of over $39,000, and one shrewd player had the only winning ticket that returned $34,157. The sequence saw a 50-1 bomb joined by horses who were sent off at 2-1, 1-2, 3-2, 7-2 and 5-1.

With the top six drivers at the Fall Meeting taking the night off, Zeron – currently No. 7 – had his way, as in addition to his win in the fifth race, he was on target with 8-1 chance Monty Mono in the sixth race; 2-1 shot Opus Blue Chip in the seventh; and Skyway Kon Man, who went off at 3-2 in the 11th.

The Meadowlands had a remarkable 2021 from a handle perspective, finishing the 92 race cards with an average wager per card of just over $3 million.

Betting for the calendar year totalled $276,031,079, good for an average of $3,000,337 per card.

After being the leading driver at both the Winter-Spring-Championship and Fall Meetings, Dexter Dunn finished the year atop the Big M standings with 166 victories. Yannick Gingras was second with 116.
Ron Burke finished second to Jeff Cullipher in the W-S-C Meeting but won 30 times in the Fall to pass Cullipher for the year 78 wins to 71.

The Meadowlands has no live racing on Saturday, Jan. 1 and will return with live action on Friday, Jan. 7 at 6:20 p.m.

(Meadowlands)