Client Nine made fast work of six skilled trotting rivals with a career-best 1:54.4 victory in Friday night’s $8,000 featured Open-2 Handicap at Vernon Downs.
An outside choice in the ninth race, Client Nine went right to the lead and laid down splits of :27, :56 and 1:25.1 en route to a one length victory over the pocket-sitting Glorious Winner.
The gritty five-year-old gelding rewarded his backers with a $26 win payoff.
Although it was the first local tally this term, it marked the fifth season’s score and the 11th all-time triumph for the bay son of Yankee Glide and Gillie, who is owned by trainer Dave Dewhurst and Philip K. Hale.
Client Nine’s first-place finish was one of four during Friday’s 12-race card by Chris Lems, who became one of only four reinsmen to have accumulated four victories on a single program at the 35-program meeting. The 26-year-old horseman currently ranks third on the track’s dashes-won chart with 48 victories.
Other multiple winners during Friday’s card were trainer/driver Gates Brunet, driver Truman Gale, trainer Howard Okusko Sr. and owners Theodore Gewertz, Jean Brunet and Deborah Brunet, each with two tallies.
Saturday night’s 13-race card will begin at 6:45 p.m. and feature the 2013 Miss Vernon Downs pageant during live racing, plus three New York Sires Stakes segments and five Excelsior Series races for three-year-old male trotters.
(Vernon Downs)