Ziegfeld won the $11,000 Open Trot for the second straight week in a season’s best 1:57.4 with Ray Fisher Jr. aboard at Buffalo Raceway on Friday night (May 31).
The win was the sixth in 13 attempts this season for Ziegfeld, a five-year-old Broadway Hall gelding trained by Gerry Samara and owned by Michael Torcello of Hamburg, New York.
Ziegfeld ($11.80), the 9-2 third choice in the betting, settled in fourth from post five as eventual third-place finisher and race favourite Mythical Hall (Kevin Cummings) cut all the fractions in the race of :28.4, :58, and 1:28. As the field hit the top of the stretch, Ziegfeld swung to the outside and used a :29.2 last quarter-mile to beat second-place finisher Berosus (Drew Monti) by half a length at the finish line.
The $5,500 winner's share of the purse put Ziegfeld’s seasonal earnings at $38,580 and lifetime bankroll at $146,262. The win was his 18th in 77 lifetime starts.
Racing will resume on Saturday, June 1 with first post scheduled for 6:40 p.m. eastern time. There will be six New York Sire Stakes races on tap for three-year-old pacing fillies, highlighted in race eight by Summertime Lea, last year’s two-year-old Sire Stakes champion.
(With files from Buffalo Raceway)