Southbound Trucker has won four of five starts this season, and his driver, Bruce Aldrich, Jr., has gone on the record as saying “he never ceases to amaze me
."
Rebounding from his first loss of the '09 campaign, Southbound Trucker took a first-over tour of the Monticello Raceway oval yesterday. After engaging the leader through the third quarter, the five-year-old Sharkey Spur gelding showed his grit the rest of the way, eventually notching a neck victory for Aldrich and trainer Aristotle Stamatien.
“I know he always has pace at the end of a mile but is time I thought he was all in," Aldrich told the Monticello Raceway publicity department. "But darned if he didn’t dig in and when he looked the other horse in the eye then I knew he was going on to win it.”
The gelding has now banked $14,618 this year for George Stamatien of West Haven, Connecticut.
(With files from Monticello)