The Free For All pacers have taken turns beating each other for the majority of the meet thus far at The Meadowlands. That trend continued on Saturday night in the form of Doctor Butch.
Sent off as the 4-1 third choice, Doctor Butch settled mid-pack and off the pace that was established early on by last week's winner, Dapper Dude.
After tripping the opening quarter in :26-seconds, John Campbell elected to yield the lead with Dapper Dude to the oncoming Warrawee Needy, who moved to the front, hitting the half-mile in :54-seconds. At this point, the outer-flow began to develop, led by the gritty Wake Up Peter, who committed first over.
Warrawee Needy went past three-quarters in 1:21.3, beginning to feel the pressure of the 9-5 favourite Wake Up Peter, who put a head in front in the stretch. But Doctor Butch was hot on his heels following second over and he was able to wear down the favourite while holding off the late charge of Beach Memories, who had been tracking Doctor Butch throughout. The son of Art Major completed the mile in 1:49 to establish a new lifetime mark.
The win marked the second on the card for trainer Linda Toscano and the third for driver Tim Tetrick. Doctor Butch is owned by Kenneth Jacobs.
The eighth race $20,000 B-1 Pace was captured by a revitalized Odds On Equuleus. Aggressively moving to the top after a :28.3 tepid opening quarter, Odds On Equuleus asserted himself on the lead and would carry the field through middle fractions of :56.3 and 1:24 before turning for home in front. With Long Live Rock on his back, Tetrick asked the classy five-year-old for speed and Odds On Equuleus responded and maintained his one length advantage through the stretch to score in 1:51.1. Odds On Equuleus is trained by Tony Alagna, giving him a training double, and is owned by Odds On Racing. The win marked the fourth on the card for Tetrick.
The sixth race, a $20,000 B-2/B-1 Handicap Pace saw Als Hammered rally from far off the pace to score a bounce-back win in 1:51, splashing home in a powerful :26.4 seconds. Als Hammered was coming off a season that saw him win 15 of 29 starts and he makes his first start of 2015 a winning one. The six-year-old Peter Tritton trainee was guided to victory by Ron Pierce for Harry von Knoblauch.
The 2014 Gallo Blue Chip Scholarships were presented in a winner's circle ceremony at The Meadowlands on Saturday night to the two recipients, John McDermott Jr. and Guadalupe Diaz.
McDermott is the son of trainer John McDermott and he was the recipient of the $15,000 Gallo Blue Chip Scholarship, presented and funded by the owner of Gallo Blue Chip, Martin Scharf, and administered by the Harness Horse Youth Foundation. McDermott is a freshman in Business Administration at the University of Florida. He has aspirations of pursuing a masters degree and spoke about his opportunities to sit behind the extremely fast Hurrikane Kingcole, whom his father trains. In an in house interview, the younger McDermott joked saying, "I have seen him [Hurrikane Kingcole] give Corey Callahan trouble in the bike, so I don't think my dad was going to let me sit behind him going full-speed." He will head back to Gainsville, Florida for the spring semester.
Diaz, a resident of Middletown, New York, is a junior at Stony Brook University, studying Chemical and Molecular Engineering. She will receive a $5,000 stipend. Diaz noted that she still has her senior thesis to complete, but once she is done with that, things will get a little easier at school.
The Gallo Blue Chip Scholarship is sponsored by Scharf to honour his magnificent standardbred, Gallo Blue Chip, who retired as the richest pacer in harness racing history.
There were no winning tickets in the fifth race Jackpot Super Hi-5. The carryover into the Thursday program stands at $10,645.77. The 13th race jackpot went unclaimed and the carryover for race 13 on Thursday is $28,076.98. Post time for Thursday night is 7:15 p.m. and features the first round of the Super Bowl Trotting Series.
(With files from Meadowlands Racetrack)