Pace Baby Pace won for the 12th time this season in Friday’s Mares Open Handicap Pace at Hollywood Dayton. The five-year-old daughter of Sweet Lou nipped favoured Miss You N by a neck in the final strides, utilizing the passing lane to full advantage.
Driver Chris Page rushed the winner out to good forward position early, allowing Miss You N (Brett Miller) to clear to the front and do most of the work in the 1:51.3 mile. T Degengold (Tony Hall) was best of the rest following an exciting stretch drive. Penpaperpaige (Tyler Smith) and Talkaboutaqueen (Josh Sutton) earned the minor awards in the $28,000 event.
Pace Baby Pace, with the familiar wide white blaze, is a homebred owned by Burke Racing Stable and Weaver Bruscemi LLC. Her 24 lifetime wins has pumped her career bounty up to $352,650.
Driver Jeremy Smith led the drivers with four scores on the 14 race program. Following a scare when he got kicked in the hand by a horse on Thursday and had to take off his final few drives, Smith recovered quickly and rebounded with the ‘Grand Slam’. His winners were Swartz Bros Susie ($18.20), Riverdancing Diva ($40.80), Voluptuous ($5.80) and Stay Gold ($4.60).
The Friday night Pick 5 was guaranteed to produce a $20,000 pool, but it actually soared to $31,656 prior to the kickoff of the bet in Race 5. In the end, a total of 24 winning 50-cent tickets were sold and each returned a $1,319 payoff.
Racing resumes on Saturday (Nov. 20) with a 14 race program commencing at 4 p.m.
(Hollywood Dayton)