Good Feeling, catch-driven on Saturday night (January 2) by Joe Pennacchio, took top honours in the $10,900 final of the Florida Amateur Driving Club Late Closer event at Pompano Park.
The gallant 13-year-old gelded son of Fill V won for the 53rd time during his long career measuring 292 starts, stopping the teletimer in 1:58.2. His win margin was two and a quarter lengths over the pacesetting Mystical Shopper, handled by Leon Cable. Zeitgeist and driver Dein Spriggs teamed up to be third after starting from the outside post while Good Friend finished fourth over Tymal Recap, who was fifth in the field scratched down to eight.
At the outset, it was Mystical Shopper (post two), the even money toteboard favourite, dashing out for the early lead along with Good Feeling (post three) settling in the garden spot with Rel Cash Clown (Tommy Santeramo) surging up quickly from post seven and Zeitgeist and driver Dein Spriggs (outside) also showing early foot leaving and wending their way into the third and fourth spots, respectively.
With Mystical Shopper cutting honest fractions for this class of $5,000 claimers (:28.2, :58 and 1:27.2) positions remained relatively stagnant with only Rel Cash Clown and Play Fair, on a double-bubble backside binge out and denting the leaders edge -- but only briefly.
In the lane, Mystical Shopper cut the corner, but Good Feeling was out of his cozy pocket and easily wore down the leader at mid-stretch, stretching his lead to the wire.
In a post race interview, Pennacchio, who had 151 amateur wins coming in at 22 different racing venues, said, "We got a picture perfect journey. I was driving a classy, hard-hitting warrior that had almost a half-million [dollars] on his card and that's not done sitting in the stall.
"It was a dream journey. I left with him because he seems to like to be in the action early and he found me a seat behind the leader. He took me for a nice ride tonight. All I did was steer!"
Ironically, the share of this win ($5,450) was the largest for Good Feeling in exactly three years (January 2, 2013) when he won a $15,000 claiming event at Dover Downs. He also won on January 4, 2012 in a $20,000 claiming event at Dover, prompting Pennacchio to add, "What can I say, he's old enough to celebrate the New Year in style!"
Trained by Allen Saul for owner Dein Spriggs, Good Feeling now has a scorecard of 52-47-47 in 292 lifetime starts, good for $475,763.
As the fifth choice on the toteboard, Good Feeling rewarded his faithful with a $20.80 mutuel and capped a Pick 5 where not a single ticket was sold on the 2-2-5-6-4 combination, necessitating a carryover to the Sunday night card and a guaranteed pool of $10,000.
By the way, after this Late Closing final was made "official," the contingent of Florida Amateur Driving Club members gathered to give a sizable donation to the Smart Ride Organization in their efforts to find a cure for and eradicate the HIV virus.
Dr. Marah Lee, a horse owner and prominent physician in the field of HIV, was on hand in the winner's circle to accept the donation, which pushed the FADC donations over the $150,000 plateau.
Also on Saturday night, when Behindcloseddoors took the evening's seventh race at better than 90-1 odds, it set the stage for a large carryover in the track's Pick 4 offering and, with no winners surfacing after its completion, a large carryover is in place with a $30,000 Pick 4 guarantee for the Sunday night card. Post time is 7:30 p.m.
(With files from Pompano Park)