BZ Glide tied the all-time trotting record in Buffalo Raceway's $11,500 Open Trot on Friday night and broke the aged gelding mark as well with a brilliant gate-to-wire 1:56.1 mile over the fast track. It was also a lifetime mark for the nine-year-old gelded BZ Glide whose previous career best was 1:56.3.
The all-time standard equaled by BZ Glide will be shared with Gural Hanover and Chelseas Chance who each went 1:56.1 in 2014 and 2018 respectively. Ironically, Chelseas Chance finished second, two lengths behind BZ Glide on Friday.
The aged gelding record was 1:56.2 established by Lutetium in 2014 and Kahoku in 2016.
While BZ Glide gets the credit for the record-tying race, driver Mike Caprio said the change of bikes made a huge difference. "The bike I was using was like 20 years old so I bought the one I am using now from Jim Morrill, Jr. I adjusted the seat and foot pegs and BZ Glide was a lot more comfortable with it."
BZ Glide was ready to go at the start and immediately fired out to the lead. Posting fractions of :28.2, :57.4 and 1:27.2, it appeared Barn Winner might be the main threat down the stretch but that attempt fizzled out. Chelseas Chance (Bobby Verney) skimmed the rail for second while Barn Winner (Ray Fisher, Jr.) held on for third.
Owned by the Caprio Stable LLC and trained by Alana Caprio, it was the second win in seven starts in 2018 for BZ Glide (Yankee Glide-Bloomer Zoomer). The victory pushed his seasonal earnings to $20,930 and $276,932 lifetime. BZ Glide paid $4.00 to win.
Ray Fisher, Jr. and Kevin Cummings had doubles in the sulky while Verney and Marc Shuttleworth had two training victories.
Racing will continue on Saturday night with 10 races scheduled for a 6 p.m. post.
(Buffalo Raceway)