Aruba Vacation and Fern Paquet Jr. equalled the track record for aged gelding trotters on Saturday night at Tioga Downs with a 1:53.3 mark in the $11,500 Winner's Over Trot.
Leaving from post position number five in a field of eight, Paquet hustled Aruba Vacation past the quarter in :27.4 before yielding to Macs Bad Boy (Sean Bier). Bier took the field by the half-mile mark of the race in :56.1 and continued to lead by three-quarters in 1:25. Around the final turn, Paquet angled Aruba Vacation off the rail to challenge the leader and he responded trotting by Macs Bad Boy in the stretch for his second win of the year.
Aruba Vacation is a five-year-old homebred son of Dream Vacation–Dixie Hit owned by the Howard Stables of Binghamton, New York and trained Guy Howard. The win was the second in 10 seasonal starts for Aruba Vacation, who established a new lifetime mark with the mile, and increased his seasonal earnings to more than $32,000.
Hoboken Sonny (Jim Raymer) got up to finish second, while Macs Bad Boy (Sean Bier) hung tough for third.
The 1:53.3 track mark was originally established by Woody Woodrow (Mike Simons) in 2007, and was equalled once more earlier this year by Spice It Up Lindy (Jim Meittinis).
Sean Bier posted a driving double on the night’s nine-race card and increased his total to 1,997 on his quest to 2,000 career wins.
(With files from Tioga Downs)