Clowns Smile (Eric Goodell) went from understudy to name-above-the-marquee Saturday night, winning Yonkers Raceway's $43,000 Open Handicap Pace

in fortuitous fashion.

Leaving to immediate command from behind the eight-ball, Clowns Smile then gave it up to 4-5 favourite Urgent Action (Jason Bartlett). That one eschewed an early pocket, making the lead after a :26.4 opening quarter-mile. Urgent Action then set sail through intervals of :56.3 and 1:25.

From that point, we had ourselves an old-time match race. Urgent Action took a length-and-a-half lead over Clowns Smile into the lane, with many lengths back to the rest. Urgent Action found the mile in 1:52.2 and was home free, except for one tiny detail...he couldn't get home.

Urgent Action jumped it off in the very late stages, leaving both the pomp and the circumstance to Clowns Smile. That one actually crossed the line first by a nose, pacing the mile-and-one-sixteenth in 1:59.3. Urgent Action wound up second-placed-last (eighth) for his transgression, with Howyadoinpal (Jeff Gregory), Domitian Hanover (Cat Manzi), Saint William A (Brent Holland) and River Shark (Jordan Stratton) completing the recalculated money-earners.

For Clown's Smile, a seven-year-old Grinfromeartoear gelding owned by West Wins Stable of Cambridge, Ont. and trained by Casie Coleman, he returned $11 (second choice) for his eighth win in 18 seasonal starts. The exacta paid $71, with the triple returning $673.

(Yonkers Raceway)