Jason Bartlett won half of Yonkers Raceway’s dozen Saturday night (July 2) races, including both $45,000 Open Handicaps.
Pole-sitting, odds-on Mach It So ($2.80) was a handy winner in the week’s featured pace, whipping Santa Fe Beachboy (Brian Sears) by a length and a quarter in a two-speed, 1:51 number. Somewhere in L A (George Brennan) was a non-threatening third.
Five races later, Bartlett and Major Athens ($6.80) overcame an assigned outside seven-hole in the week’s marquee trot. Leaving into a convenient three-hole, the pair engaged, then overtook, Allerage Star (Sears) in 1:54. The final margin was widening three and three-quarter lengths. Luminosity (Brennan), at just over even-money, lost touch with the leaders and wound up third, beaten six lengths.
Special Saturday props to Great Vintage (Dan Dube, $8.50), who became the sport’s newest millionaire ($1,010,548) while being left alone on the lead in the $35,000, Winners Over Pace (1:52). The eight-year-old son of American Ideal was making his 122nd career start.
(With files from Yonkers Raceway)