Driver Tyler Buter continued in hot driving form at The Downs at Mohegan Sun Pocono on Tuesday afternoon (Oct. 19), winning six races to run his October visits to Victory Lane at the Downs to 25 in just nine cards of racing.
One of Buter’s victories came in the $17,000 pacing division of the day’s featured class. The Captaintreacherous sophomore gelding Captain Romance was kept in last much of the way in a six-horse field as contentious pyrotechnics on the lead produced splits of :26.2, :54.2 and 1:21.3. Then Buter tipped his horse wide for the stretch drive and the pacer finished strongly to lower his mark to 1:50.3 while defeating Bipbopnallie, last week’s winner in this class, by a half-length. Robert Baggitt Jr. conditions the winner of four of his last five starts for J L Sadowsky LLC.
In the trotting feature, Big Nudge lived up to the crowd’s sending him off as an odds-on favourite with a 10-1/2-length routing of his opposition as he reduced his lifetime best to 1:54.4. The track’s leading driver, George Napolitano Jr., sent the Donato Hanover gelding three-wide early on the backstretch to sweep by embattled front-enders, then increased the distance between himself and the opposition with every stride for trainer Symon Spicer, who co-owns the winner with George Beck and Michael Sherman Jr.
The Breeders Crown eliminations will be held this weekend at The Meadowlands, and Pocono will offer simulcasting wagering on the Friday card at 6:20 p.m. and the Saturday noon card at the Jersey oval. For Pocono punters, the Crown Saturday racing could be a nice complement to the top-level live card the Downs is offering on Saturday starting at 12:30 p.m., with two $18,000 divisions of the competitive high-end claiming handicap pace and a $17,500 fast-class trot featured. Program pages for Saturday’s Pocono card will be available on the PHHA website.
(PHHA/Pocono)