Hungry Angel Boy, a four-year-old son of Stay Hungry, is two-for-two in 2024 after overcoming the outside post seven to win the $21,918 featured pace at Pocono Downs at Mohegan Pennsylvania on Tuesday, May 28 afternoon in 1:50.3.
The winner of $357,348 was wide early and settled in third as Twin B Risenshine took the field to the quarter in :26 and the half in :54.4. Driver Braxten Boyd vacated third position midway down the backstretch and roared up to challenge, taking over just past the 1:21.3 three-quarters while pacing the eighth of a mile he covered in taking the lead in the vicinity of 13 seconds. Girldad came up the inside late to finish second, 2-3/4 lengths behind the winner and 1-1/4 lengths ahead of the favourite Strengthfromabove, who rode in the pocket, backed out after the winner passed, but couldn’t make up ground.
Hungry Angel Boy earned almost half of his lifetime bankroll by finishing second to U.S. Horse of the Year Confederate in last year’s Meadowlands Pace. He is now trained by Nicholas Devita for Eric Prevost and Pit Bull Stable LLC.
When your bet requiring selection of the first five finishers in order, called a Pentafecta at Pocono, is headed by a 12-1 shot and a 46-1 shot, you’d expect no one to have the winning combination. But between three days of Pentafecta carryovers and the first three choices in the race all getting cheques behind the longshots, one Pocono bettor emerged with a lone 3-6-1-2-7 50-cent ticket, which returned a windfall of $10,244.50.
Braxten Boyd, who drove the feature race winner, and 15-time Pocono dash-winning champion George Napolitano Jr. each triumphed four times on the card -- Napolitano doubling with horses conditioned by meet leader Jeff Cullipher and Boyd adding a second triumph to the Devita barn. Napolitano now has a 104-103 lead for the meet over two-time defending champion Matt Kakaley, who left early to fulfill commitments at Yonkers. Boyd is now fifth in the standings with 71 wins, and it took solid days from the next two drivers above him, Tyler Buter (three wins) and Anthony Napolitano (two wins), to keep him from moving up; the last-named two are tied for third with 73 victories.
The next pari-mutuel racing at Pocono will come on Saturday, June 1 at 1 p.m., but there will be racing excitement before then – the two-year-olds, 10 fields strong, will come out for the first time in a 10 a.m. session on Wednesday, May 29.
(PHHA / Pocono)