Northern Companion earned his 34th lifetime victory Saturday night by scoring a sharp 1:51 victory for Dave Ingraham in Pompano Park's $10,000 Open Pace.
The six-year-old son of Cambest, trained by Howard Klohr for owner Dorothy Zarza, wore down the game Lyons Johnny, handled by Wally Hennessey, to score by a length and a half. Hillybilly and Bruce Ranger teamed up to finish third while Eastend Eddie, last in the field for the first half mile, rallied to finish fourth. Whos Your Maddy finished fifth in the seven horse field.
Lyons Johnny out-dueled Electric Lad in the early stages and took the field to the first station in :27.2 with Northern Companion nestled into third and remaining in that position through the opening half in :55.3. On the backside, three-eighths out, Northern Companion left his comfortable surroundings and began gnawing in on Lyons Johnny's lead, cutting it in half turning for home and collaring him in mid-stretch before drawing clear late.
In a post race interview, driver Ingraham said, "…he had a nice trip but, to tell you the truth, I was concerned a bit when we weren't gaining that much around the turn. Lyons Johnny can't be taken lightly. He gave ‘Jaguar’ (Prairie Jaguar) a good tussle the week before and I wasn't sure we were going to get there but Northern Companion just has that attitude that he wants to win. He's got that winning attitude! It's a great quality in a racehorse – a winning attitude. The draw helped us this week, too, because we were a lot closer from the two post than the previous week from the six."
Northern Companion's scorecard now reads 2-2-1 in six starts and the victory pushed his lifetime earnings over the $200,000 mark - $203,082 to be exact.
As the even money favorite on the tote board, Northern Companion paid $4.00 to win.
There is a Pick-4 carryover of over $3,000 going into Sunday's racing program.
Sunday also is the kickoff of Pompano's $20,000 Championship Driver's Challenge, which gets underway with a Round 1 pairing of Dave Ingraham and Rick Plano.
First-race post time is 7:05 p.m.
(Pompano)