The Quik Pulse Mindale gelding Victory At Last became the first two-time winner in his section of the Bobby Weiss Series for late-developing pacing males, winning one of the three $15,000 second round Weiss events Saturday night at The Downs at Mohegan Sun Pocono.
Last week, Victory At Last led at every call and lasted over the late charge of a Rene Allard-trained horse, YS Lotus, by a head. This week, the winner sat the pocket behind another Allard trainee, Vance Bayama, and rallied in the Pocono Pike to win in 1:54.2, last quarter :27.3, with the victory margin a head this week as well. Matt Kakaley, again, handled Victory At Last for trainer Ron Burke and the powerful combine of Burke Racing and Weaver Bruscemi.
Allard, the leading trainer at Pocono last year, sent out the fastest winner in the two rounds of competition when YS Lotus, mentioned above, made a sweeping move around tired foes to the three-quarters and won by five lengths in a personal-best 1:52 (on a 26 degree night). Allard’s brother Simon was in the sulky behind the altered son of If I Can Dream, an “iron horse” racing for the fourth time in 11 days, for owner Yves Sarrazin.
Both Victory At Last and YS Lotus were the crowd choices; such was not the case in the third Weiss event, as 13-1 shot Weapons Dealer angled wide in the stretch and caught Shadow Margeaux, a $77 win bomber last week, by a neck, taking a new speed badge of 1:54.1. Anthony Napolitano handled sulky duties behind the Western Ideal gelding for trainer Daniel Renaud and owner Robert Di Mozzi.
(PHHA/Pocono)