In the golden years, harness racing was considered an “old man’s game,” but since the advent of catch-drivers, youth has prevailed. Still, some “old men” can drive with the best of them. Take Billy “Zeke” Parker Jr., who is just two months from his 58th birthday and is certainly not slowing him down
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A winner of over 10,460 races thus far in an illustrious career that should someday bring a Hall of Fame nomination to the former Mainer, Zeke keeps on keeping on.
Yesterday (August 4), at Monticello Raceway the bearded-wonder reined six winners on the card, and his 229 driving victories keeps him atop of the local leaderboard despite a recent hot hand by Bruce Aldrich, Jr.
Zeke, as he likes to be known as, began his day winning both ends of the early double. He scored a 2:00.4 triumph with Ray Morgan’s The Daily Diary in the first race and then came right back to rein Ken Weckstein and Richard Rubin’s Gold Comet to a 2:00.1 victory in the second contest. After winning the fourth race with Dr. Scott Woogen’s three-year-old trotting filly Spurofthemuscle in a time of 2:05.2, he lost a tight nose- photo in the next race to Fox Valley Decoy. But then Zeke won the sixth race with Diana Bartell’s Keystone Endurance in a 1:58.2 clocking, and win number five came in race nine behind Roger Dirlam, Maple Ridge Stable, and Mary Martin’s three-year-old daughter of The Panderosa, Tiza Mojo in a time of 1:59.3. His final victory on the afternoon card came with Sitting Bull Stables’ Mizuno in 1:58.3 in race number 11.
Over the past two weeks, Parker saw his 30-race win lead over Bruce Aldrich Jr. shrink, but his six wins on the August 4 card now gives him some cushion and a nine victory lead.
“All my life I had hot streaks when everything seems to go my way and then there were times when nothing seemed to go right. Today was one of the days when things went my way...but with a little luck I could have won seven," said Parker, referring to his second place finish in the fourth race on the card.
Over the years Parker has had many multiple-win days, and though six driving victories is a good daily output, on October 20, 1996 Zeke equalled the then world record of nine wins on that 10-race card.
(Monticello Raceway)