Little Rocket Man “rocketed” to the lead late in the stretch to win the $36,986 Open Pace on Saturday, May 18 at Eldorado Scioto Downs in 1:49.4.

Getting away fifth from the nine hole, driver Jeremy Smith was content to sit in while Artatac A (Dan Noble) set early fractions of :27.1 and :56. Just before the half, Smith angled Little Rocket Man second over after Makin Some Noise (Tony Hall) and the field boogied through a :26.2 third quarter to trip the beam in 1:22.3. Little Rocket Man went three-wide mid-way through the last turn and posted a :26.3 last quarter to win by 3-3/4 lengths over Makin Some Noise, with Artatac A holding on for third.

In five seasonal starts, Little Rocket Man has earned $50,250, which pushes his lifetime earnings to nearly $1.18 million. The eight-year-old gelded son of Rockin Image is owned by Russell Beeman and Jack Freeman, and trained by Ken Rucker.

The Saturday card boasted quite a few carryovers for handicappers, including into the early Pick-3 and the first Super Hi-5 of the evening from the Friday card. Within the card, there were three instant carryovers and there is a small carryover for the early Pick-5 on Tuesday, starting in race one. Free program pages for each live racing day are available on the Scioto Downs website.

The first two cards of Scioto’s third week of the 2024 season have been drawn, with each day continuing to have 16 races. The only races with less than nine horses in them are the three splits for the second leg of the John Konesky III Trot for fillies that are non-winners of one race.

“Our box continues to be oversubscribed,” said Jason Roth, Scioto’s Director of Racing. “We’re averaging 247 horses in the box each day and we’re filling more races for trotters than ever before, including the non-winners of six (straight and conditioned claimer) and non-winners of 10 conditioned claimer, that have historically never filled, plus we’ve had enough higher end horses to fill an Open Trot, a Fillies and Mares Open Trot, an Open II, non-winners $14,000 last four and the non-winners of $10,500 over these two weeks.”

The 90-day 2024 Eldorado Scioto Downs race meet runs through Saturday, Sept. 14. Races are held Tuesday-Saturday, with special holiday cards on Memorial Day and Labour Day taking place instead of the Tuesday card that week. First post is at 5:45 p.m. each day except for Thursday, July 4 with a post of 3:15 p.m. and Friday, Sept. 13, which will have a 6:15 p.m. post, to help accommodate horsepeople attending the Ohio Selected Yearling Sale. 

(Scioto Downs)