One of the winningest and most popular horses in Running Aces six-year history returned to the winner’s circle Tuesday night, but this time in an upset 1:52.1 triumph in the featured weekly $8,500 Open Pace.
An 11-time winner in 2012, often as a heavy favourite, Restless Yankee (Nick Roland) was dispatched at odds of 8-1 seeking his initial open class victory of 2013. He edged fellow closers Chewy Baca (Rick Magee) and Firstclassallthway (John DeLong) as odds-on front-running favourite Six Gun (Jason Ryan) faded to fourth after cutting all the fractions. The six-year-old Minnesota-sired gelding has now won 38 times in his fruitful career and banked $218,000 for owners Ron Emerson and Mark Holtan.
A co-featured $9,000 Fillies and Mares Open was also contested on the program with Show Runner (Tim Maier) rebounding from a pair of recent place finishes in the same race to capture the distaff feature for the third time in five weeks. The impressive filly, owned by Denise Maier and Eileen Brodbar, upset heavily favoured Love This Place (DeLong), who recently arrived from Chicago, at odds of 9-2. Still Electric (Don Sherman) was within a length at the wire reached in 1:54.4.
Earlier on the card, Al Mar Passion (Magee) lowered the track standard for two-year-old trotters to 2:00.1, beating Chewy Dunkerton (Steve Wiseman) and Abras Starlight (Roland) in a $13,500 state-restricted freshman trot. Rick Magee also owns the son of Abra who now has three wins in five seasonal starts.
Racing resumes Wednesday night at Running Aces with a full field of trotters going postward in the $9,500 eighth race Open Trot.
(Running Aces)