The pacer Oh My Joepa was in mid-season form as he rallied for a 1:52.1 score in Saturday night’s $7,000 featured seventh race at Vernon Downs.

With Luke Plano doing the driving for trainer Michael Deters, Oh My Joepa advanced from fifth in the early going, using the outside rally route to reach second entering the final quarter. The gritty five-year-old gelding then accelerated in the final furlong to gain a one and three-quarter length tally over the closest of his eight rivals.

Saturday’s success was the fourth this season (second locally) and ninth all-time for the bay son of Rocknroll Hanover and Nittany Lion, who raised his career winnings to nearly $44,000 for owner Paul Parenteau.

The Plano driving duo (Luke and father Rick) won five of Saturday’s 12 races, with leading reinsman Rick posting four first-place finishes for the fifth time in 45 programs.

To celebrate the 88th Hambletonian Stake raced earlier in the day at the New Meadowlands Racetrack in New Jersey (won by the Vernon-based sophomore trotter Royalty For Life from the George Ducharme stable), the Downs carded the “Dashtonian” in race two, a half-mile pacing test, that was won in a track-record time of :53.2 seconds by the quick-footed Some Or Lis, with Joe Nassimos steering for owner and trainer Richard Dow.

Two races later, the “Vernontonian” was conducted on the trot at the 1-3/8-mile distance, and the winner was Dipietrantonio in 2:45, which was three-fifths of a second off the track standard for this gait and distance, set by Ivanhoe Diamant in 2011. Rick Plano did the piloting for trainer Rick Papa and the Joe Faraldo and Peter Venaglia ownership duo.

Truman Gale and Jimmy Whittemore earned a pair of victories during Saturday’s slate, as did trainers Robert C. Gale and Deters.

(Vernon Downs)