Racine Bell, who, in June at The Meadowlands, equalled the 1:48.1 world record for four-year-old pacing mares and has been dominant in the Open class at Yonkers Raceway since spring, shipped into Batavia Downs on Wednesday night (Aug. 4) and demolished the existing track record for pacing mares with a dominant 1:51.3, gate-to-wire victory in the $11,200 Mares Open Pace.
Jason Bartlett took no prisoners off the gate and set torrid fractions of :27.2, :55.4 and 1:23.3, extending Racine Bell's lead at each station while the rest of the field tried to keep up. But that was not going to happen as Racine Bell accelerated around the last turn and put a copious amount of real estate between herself and the competition. In full flight down the stretch, Bartlett urged on Racine Bell, who drew off to win by eight lengths in 1:51.3.
The previous divisional track record was 1:53, set by Xenia Hanover in 2013. The 1:51.3 clocking was also only two-fifths of a second off the all-time pacing track record of 1:51.1, set by Aracache Hanover in 2011.
It was the 10th win of the year in only 16 starts for David Dewhurst trainee Racine Bell ($2.10), and it pushed her 2021 earnings to $174,050 for owners Chris and Dale Lawton.
Racing resumes at Batavia Downs on Saturday (Aug. 7) with post time at 6 p.m.
(Batavia Downs)