Ideal Cowboy chased hot fractions, then grinded up first-over and drew away in the last quarter to easily win the $25,000 Winners Over featured pace Saturday night (June 4) at The Downs at Mohegan Sun Pocono.
Jason Bartlett, the leading money-winning driver in North America so far in 2016, took a busman’s holiday from Yonkers, where he is the leading driver and which is on hiatus for a week, and sat back while half of the six-horse field laid out hot splits of :26.1 and :53.2. Bartlett and his winning American Ideal gelding began their raw move towards the 1:21 three-quarters. Ideal Cowboy quickly passed his competition off the turn and drew off to win by five lengths in 1:49.1 over Jins Dragon, who’s risen from the “nw2800L4” class to featured race status within three months. Trainer Jeffrey Bamond Jr. conditions the winner of nearly $400,000, who lowered his lifetime mark by a tick, for Bamond Racing LLC and J&T Silva Stables LLC.
Bartlett wasn’t the only denizen of Gotham City to take the mountain trip and make it profitable; George Brennan also came over and had four winners to Bartlett’s two.
The fastest mile of the night was in the $18,000 co-feature, as the McArdle ridgling McArdles Lightning made every pole a winning one with a 1:49 victory. The winner went in :26.1 in both odd-numbered quarters, with the four-year-old, the youngest horse in the field, one and a half lengths ahead at the wire of the oldest horse in the field, eight-year-old Eighteen. Simon Allard guided the winner, who knocked two-fifths of a second off his personal best in triumphing for trainer Steve Elliott and the Lightning Stable.
(With files from PHHA/Pocono)