El Diablo Hall prevailed in his first try in the Open Trot on Sunday afternoon (June 19) at Saratoga Casino Hotel.
The Melissa Beckwith trainee left hard early before yielding to the race’s favourite, Stirling Cadet (Frank Coppola Jr). Stirling Cadet enjoyed soft fractions in the middle-half, but didn’t have enough to hold off the late surge up the inside by El Diablo Hall, who tracked him down in the final strides to win by a nose.
The win was the fifth win in the last six starts for Bret Pisarski's four-year-old Windsong Espoir trotter, who debuted in the $15,000 feature on a beautiful Sunday afternoon at the Spa.
Mark Beckwith piloted El Diablo Hall, who paid $7.80 to win, to his seventh victory of the season, which came in a career-best 1:55.2. Stirling Cadet came up second-best while On The Podium (Bruce Aldrich Jr.) earned the show spot. The exacta returned $13.20 while the triple came back $54.
Live racing resumes on Thursday afternoon at Saratoga beginning at 4:00pm.
(With files from Saratoga)