Quick Deal dipped his hooves in ink and rewrote Yonkers Raceway's record book Tuesday night, becoming the fastest trotter in local history.
Returning to Westchester for the first time since early this season, Quick Deal's big deal blew away the gang in the $19,000, sixth-race trot. Leaving from post position five as the 35-cents-on-the-dollar favourite, he made the lead for driver George Brennan around Political Desire (Mark MacDonald) right at the :27.3 opening quarter-mile.
From there, a 57-second intermission and 1:25 three-quarters gave Quick Deal 8-1/2 lengths turning for home.
The final margin - over Cash Poor (Austin Siegelman) - was 11-1/2 lengths in 1:53.3, with Political Desire third.
The effort displaced a quartet of trotters - Blacktuxwhitesocks (Brennan), 2012 Yonkers Trot winner, Archangel (Jim Morrill, Jr.), Super Manning (MacDonald) and Tall Cotton (Dan Dube) - whose previous 1:54.1 efforts adorned the archives.
Quick Deal also eclipsed Scorpion Moon's (1:54) aged gelding/half-mile oval world record, taken at Saratoga in 2010.
For Quick Deal, a five-year-old Revenue S gelding trained by Ron Burke for co-owners Our Horse Cents Stable and Rossie Smith, he returned $2.70 for his fifth win in 17 seasonal starts.
"I know he didn't have a whole lot of half-mile experience (a break the last he was here), and they just said to watch out with him going into the first turn," Brennan said. "Once I made the lead, the rest was simple. I've won a ton of Opens here, but obviously never that fast.
"A sub-1:54 mile for a trotter here, that's something, but he felt very strong."
Quick Deal's effort came within Tuesday's Pick 5, where a $13,000-plus double carryover and a $25,000 guaranteed pool spurred $37,306 of new money. The gimmick wager was hit (winning numbers 4-5-2-4-3 paid $1,648 for a 50-cent wager).
(Yonkers Raceway)