Zeke Parker has found his groove again. After reining five winners on Wednesday, the 17-time Mighty M driving champ came right back Thursday and drove six winners on the 12-race card at Monticello Raceway.
“I’m having a good week,” Parker said when contacted by phone in the paddock after his six-win day. “I don’t think I’m doing anything different but I am getting some live mounts.”
With two wins on the Monday program, one on Tuesday, and 11 over the past two days Zeke has 13 driving victories on the past four-day Mighty M week.
Parker scored his first victory right off the reel when he won the first race with Triple T Racing Stables’ Vinnies Valentine ($6.20) in 1:59.4 and it wasn’t until the sixth race that Zeke scored again, and when he did he reeled off three consecutive winners.
He won the sixth with Robert Bourgon’s trotter, Gate Keeper ($25.60), in 2:03.1 and copped the seventh behind Richard Stiles’ Wink And Nod ($8.00) in 1:57.4. He then drove Diana Bartells’ trotter Batu Khan ($48.00) to a 2:03 victory.
And Parker wasn’t done.
He made a laugher out of race 10 when he guided Bill Demberg’s See You Smile ($5.20) to an eight-length triumph in a 1:56 clocking. He then capped another outstanding day winning the final race with his and Evan Katz’s Truponder ($4.70) in 2:00.
When told that his longtime friend and fellow Mainer, Walter Case, Jr. with 11,038 wins, is next in line on his move up the victories ladder Parker dismissed any real accomplishment in that saying “I don’t think it’s fair and I’ll feel bad because Casey hasn’t driven in years.”
“Zeke, there’s no crime in moving up because someone else hasn’t been racing for a long time,” Parker’s pal and co-owner Evan Katz said to him after the last race which they won. “You know you’re still 300 wins away and maybe when you start approaching Case’s numbers he might be back in the sulky again.”
(Monticello Raceway