Or and driver Brent Holland, assigned the inside as the wagering outsider, picked off favoured Code Word and Jason Bartlett Saturday night, winning Yonkers Raceway's $44,000 Open Handicap Pace.
Code Word, last week's wire-to-wire winner and this week's 9-10 favourite, had few issues making the lead from post position No. 6. After a :27.2 opening quarter-mile and :56.2 intermission, P H Jackpot (George Brennan) moved from fourth. That one challenged the leader through the 1:24.4 three-quarters before being summarily dismissed.
Meanwhile, Code Word looked comfy with a two-length lead into the lane. However, Or popped the pocket and closed steadily, snapping the people's choice by a half-length in 1:52.4. Iwannarace Hanover (Jordan Stratton), Aussie Reactor A (Eric Goodell) and Great Vintage (Jeff Gregory) rounded out the payees.
For Or, a six-year-old Western Terror gelding owned by T R Stables and trained by Mike Temming, he returned $35.20 for his fifth win in 23 seasonal starts. The exacta paid $126.50, with the triple returning $751.
Special Saturday props to $1.2 million earner Real Nice (Stratton, $2.30), whose win in the $33,500 seventh race pace (1:53) was the 40th of his career (including the 2011 final of the George Morton Levy Memorial Pacing Series) .
Another millionaire, the 10-year-old gelding Silent Swing (Mark MacDonald, $6.80), had win No. 61 (in start 226), going the distance in the $36,000 eighth race pace (1:52.2).
Also, a salute to driver Steve Smith and trainer Karen Garland, who swept the popular ($7.30) early double with Down Under veterans High Octane N ($3.70) and Forest Vic A ($4.10). The latter, a 13-year-old gelding, moving toward $800,000 lifetime, won his 46th career race in his 251st lifetime start.
(Yonkers Raceway)