Trainer Kyle Spagnola enjoyed his best day of the season on Saturday, June 20 at Saratoga Casino Hotel as the veteran conditioner won the featured $25,352 Open Handicap Pace with Prairie Rocknroll and went on to record a hat trick on the 11-race card.

Prairie Rocknroll won the Open for the second time this season when he completed a wire-to-wire score in 1:54.2. After being used hard to make it to the top in a first quarter of :26.4, the favoured Prairie Rocknroll had to hold off a late charge from rival Mr McLaren N (Larry Stalbaum) by a neck. Mayweather Hanover (Wally Hennessy) finished four lengths behind in third in the field that was scratched down to seven starters and included a pair of early breakers.

Billy Dobson sat behind Prairie Rocknroll, a five-year-old A Rocknroll Dance-Stonebridge Luna gelding, who has won half of his eight starts overall this year for owner/breeder Laurie Poulin of Barton, New York.

Dobson also guided Spagnola trainees Rock Solid Express and Jimmy Jets to victories on the matinee card. Claiming pacer Jimmy Jets set a new lifetime mark when he parlayed his pocket ride to a 1:55.3 win. Rock Solid Express went coast-to-coast in a conditioned optional claiming race for pacers, stopping the timer in 1:53.2 in a mild upset. 

(With files from Saratoga Casino Hotel)