On the eve of his North America Cup driving debut, Braxten Boyd won six races on the Friday, June 13 card at Tioga Downs.
Boyd kicked off the Tioga card with a sweep of the early Daily Double with a pair of Tee Wine-trained $10,274 claiming pacers, Always A Way ($4.10) and Hes Really Keen ($6.10), in the second leg of the Jack Rossi Memorial Claiming Series. He scored another series win in a $17,123 claiming division with Scootnroll ($4) in race five for trainer Brandy Wine.
Boyd was back in the winner's circle with the eighth race winner Downtown Tonight ($3), trained by Jaymes McAssey, and took the 11th race with Mark Ford trainee Fashion Terror ($3.60) before capping off the night with Crystal Coast ($2.20) in the finale for the Jenny Melander stable.
The 25-year-old Michigan native will head to Woodbine Mohawk Park on Saturday night to drive the Cameron Capone-trained post 10 starter Madden Oaks in the $1 million Pepsi North America Cup. He qualified the three-year-old Huntsville colt with a third-place finish in the fastest of three eliminations last Saturday. Boyd will try to become the youngest driver to win the Cup; Montrell Teague set the record as the youngest winner at 27 years old when he was victorious in the 2018 edition with Lather Up.
Fox Valley Leah ($3.10) and driver/trainer Todd Warren won the featured $16,438 Fillies & Mares Winners Over Pace in 1:54.3 over the 'good' track by 1-1/2 lengths, with Blue Point (Tyler Miller) and Quarrel (Mike Merton) rounding out the top three. Warren also owns the five-year-old Somestarsomewhere-Heavens Bettorhalf mare, who took her lifetime mark of 1:51.3 in last week's top distaff pace, with Lester Peters.
(Standardbred Canada; photo of Braxten Boyd at Woodbine Mohawk Park)