Iron Sharpens Iron posted another dominating performance at Running Aces on Sunday night (Sept. 10) to register his seventh win of the season in the $22,000 Minnesota-sired sophomore trot.
Sent off as the heavy 1-20 favourite from post six in the bulky 10-horse contest, driver Luke Plano sent the star son of Banker Volo right to the front while Caronamar (Brady Jenson) got away second and Ice Splitter (Todd Warren) settled away in third. Iron Sharpens Iron widened his lead at every call while posting fractions of :29.1, :58.4 and 1:27.2 and building up an insurmountable lead in the process before arriving home 10 lengths in front in 1:56.3. Ice Splitter rallied late to move into second and 80-1 longshot Stressful (Nick Roland) edged past Coronamar late to get third money.
Iron Sharpens Iron now has 18 wins from 23 career starts and has earned $197,494 to date. He is owned by Jeralene Roland, Devon Arp and the late Alfredo Villarreal, and is trained by Dan Roland. Iron Sharpens Iron paid $2.10 to win.
Perlucky turned in a sharp gate-to-wire effort to capture the $17,600 Open Handicap Trot in 1:54.3.
Nick Roland was in the bike behind Perlucky and the pair was never in doubt, leading comfortably throughout and getting home three-quarters of a length better than Winnerup (Plano) with Stride The Hill (Kevin Wallis) checking in third.
The win was the fourth of the year and the 37th career tally for the eight-year-old winner of $701,472, who is owned by Thestable Perlucky Group and trained by Bob Lems. The Lucky Chucky gelding paid $18.60 to win.
Drivers Rick Magee and Luke Plano both recorded doubles on the program.
Live harness racing returns to Running Aces on Tuesday night (Sept. 12) for the final 'Dollar Night' program for the year.
The coming week will also feature special live racing programs on Friday and Saturday (Sept. 15 & 16) to close out the 2023 season. Saturday night's program will be the richest card in the track's history with 12 championship races going for $65,000 each for a total of $780,000.
First post is 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Friday and Saturday.
(With files from Running Aces)