It’s safe to say that Shawn Gray stole the show at Plainridge Park on Thursday afternoon after winning five of the 11 races carded including a pair of $12,000 co-featured events for both male and female side-wheelers.
In the first division of non-winners of six races lifetime for the six-year-old and under colt and gelding set, Gray pulled first over at the half and took the lead with Passport To Art and then cut the remainder of the mile, eventually out-muscling Sometimes Always (Nick Graffam) in deep stretch to win by a neck in a lifetime best 1:52.1.
Passport To Art ($9.40) is owned by Elizabeth and Dyce Spalluto and is trained by Alicia Gray.
Then in the second split of that same class for the ladies, Gray went to the front right off the gate with Well Said Maria and sped through quarters of :27.3, :56.1 and 1:24.4 before turning it up coming out of the last turn and pacing away to a wrapped-up six and one-half length margin of victory in 1:55.3.
The heavily favoured Well Said Maria ($2.10) is owned by Scott Dillon. Jimmy Nickerson conditions that winner.
Gray rounded out his personal Pentafecta with wins by So So Sweet (1:56.2, $5.60), Wood Hunter (1:54.4, $16.00) and Thrownoutofbetter (1:53.4, $7.00).
On the strength of Thursday’s performance Gray now has 15 wins at the young Plainridge Park meet and is only one win behind the current dash leading driver Mitchell Cushing (who also had two wins on the card Thursday) who has 16.
Overall Gray sits in third place in North America among all drivers with 499 or less starts to date in the Universal Driver Rating (UDR) with a .388.
Racing resumes at Plainridge Park on Friday afternoon with post time set for 4 p.m.
(Standardbred Owners of Massachusetts)