The Wednesday night (September 20) spotlight fell on the fillies and mares at Batavia Downs, and All Charged Up took centre stage after capturing the $10,000 Open for distaff pacers on a beautiful late-summer evening.
All Charged Up (John MacDonald) got away last from post six as Squeeze This (Ron Beback, Jr.) inherited the front at the start with no one else deciding to go. Beback then took advantage of that situation, leading the girls to the half in a relatively tame :57.3, with the field still in single-file fashion.
As they swung into the third turn, Kruella (Shawn McDonough) pulled and started an outer flow. This allowed All Charged Up to scoot up along the pylons into fourth, right behind the still-leading Squeeze This. By the three-quarters Kruella sidled the leader and gained the advantage by the top of the stretch, which is where All Charged Up found the passing lane. MacDonald shot her through like a rocket under heavy urging to nip Kruella under the wire in 1:54.2.
It was the third win of the year for the speedy All Charged Up ($6.90), all of which were recorded at Batavia Downs. The J P Stables owns the six-year-old daughter of Ponder who is trained by her driver, John MacDonald.
In the $8,000 fillies and mares Open II, Exotic Beach (Larry Stalbaum) took full advantage of a drop in class to easily wire the field in 1:53.4, which tied her seasonal mark. The win pushed her 2017 bank to $41,016 for Stalbaum who also owns her, through the conditioning efforts of trainer Kim Asher.
Stalbaum had a big night in the bike, winning three more races besides the co-feature. This pushed his total for the meet to 46 and moved him ahead of Jim Morrill, Jr. (45) into a second-place tie with Ray Fisher, Jr. (46), 13 wins behind the meet leader Drew Monti (59).
Racing resumes at Batavia Downs on Friday night (Sepember 22) with post time set at 6:00 p.m. Eastern.
(Batavia Downs)