In spite of a five-week layoff the beat goes on for Diamond Tiara. The seven-year-old pacing mare notched her 12th seasonal victory Tuesday at Monticello Raceway with a gate-to-wire performance in 1:58.1, which has once more placed her atop the North American leaderboard in races won this year.
Jimmy Taggart Jr. was again in the sulky for trainer Mike Watson as the daughter of Mcardle notched her ninth consecutive victory.
Diamond Tiara sped to the lead and never had an anxious moment en route to the victory. Zeke Parker and Givemybest Hanover, even with a perfect two-hole journey, couldn’t get by Diamond Tiara in the deep stretch and they had to settle for second money. Theron Seelster finished third for Austin Siegelman.
“This was a tougher bunch this week,” Jimmy Taggart Jr. said of his mare’s competition today. “We got away cheap and she was her old self today in spite of her layoff.”
Diamond Tiara is owned by Philip Schultz of Michigan and it was the fourth winning drive on the 10-race card for Taggart.
Maybe something even more astonishing happened on the Tuesday card when a pair of dead-heats developed between the first four horses under the wire in the seventh race. There was a dead-heat for win and a dead-heat for show and many believe that the double dead-heats are a harness racing first. But there’s one thing for sure, it is something that never happened in the 55 years of racing here at the Mighty M.
Early Morning and driver Peter (P.J.) Lutman III were on the lead and when Jimmy Marohn Jr. made a quarter-pole move with Latin Lyric, Lutman never yielded and Latin Lyric was on the limb the rest of the way.
The fast early fractions were responsible for a tight field going into the final turn and when the field straightened for home horses were coming from everywhere and only one-fifth of a second separated the winner from the sixth-place finisher.
As one would expect there was an extended time before the numbers were posted and when it was all sorted out there was the dead-heat for win between Early Morning and a hard-charging Midnight Mass with Jimmy Taggart Jr. aboard.
But the photo still had to be inspected and when the judges declared the race official Bettorthanicecream (Austin Siegelman) and Check My Pulse with Jimmy Devaux aboard, were tied for the show spot, just noses behind the first two finishers. And Latin Lyric and KZ Bezz (Mike Merton) were right there too, just a nose or two back of the leaders.
(Monticello Raceway)