A solid field of seven Open pacers went postward in Batavia Downs feature race Saturday night and the result was a double-digit payout for the savvy bettors.
Western Alumni (Western Hanover-Countryview Miss) was the 4-1 morning line third choice and was coming off an Open class victory just last week at Buffalo Raceway. In fact he has two wins and two seconds in that class in his last four starts. Yet the six-year-old gelding was allowed to go off as a 12-1 overlay.
As the gate set the field free, Little Man Cam (Michael Whelan) opened up a quick six-length lead that left the rest of the field following in post-position order. After a :28 quarter, Best Ears (Shawn McDonough) pulled and heavily favoured Spender Hanover (Drew Monti) followed as they hit the half in :57.1. Driver Jim McNeight still had Western Alumni seventh at the wood, saving ground around turn three.
When they straightened out up the backside, McNeight got Western Alumni in gear and followed the live outer flow, third-over in a crisp 1:26 clip to the three-quarters. From that point, McNeight tipped three-deep around the turn and fanned four-wide in the stretch to out-battle the leaders and beat a fast-closing Salazar (Ron Beback Jr.) by a neck in 1:55.2. Best Ears hung on to be third.
Western Alumni paid $27.60 as he registered his sixth win of the year and the victory pushed his 2014 earnings total to $48,370.
North Creek Racing LLC of East Amherst, New York owns Western Alumni and he is trained by Jerry Nugent Jr.
Racing resumes tomorrow afternoon at the Downs with three divisions of the New York Sire Stakes and two divisions of the Excelsior Series for three-year-old pacing colts and geldings. Post time is 1:15 p.m.
(Batavia Downs)