Veteran Woodbine Entertainment circuit reinsman Mike Saftic recorded quite the career milestone on Monday evening (Sept. 24), as he reached the $100 million plateau in career purse earnings. Saftic’s achievement comes on the heels of an identical driving accomplishment that was lost in the shuffle to a degree this past weekend.
During the New York Sire Stakes’ Night of Champions card this past Saturday (Sept. 22) at Yonkers Raceway, 36-year-old reinsman Jason Bartlett captured the $225,000 NYSS Blue Chip Farms Three-Year-Old Colt/Gelding Pace with Rockapelo. The Rock N Roll Heaven gelding parlayed a first-up move into a four and a half-length romp in 1:53.1.
The victory with Rockapelo pushed Bartlett over the $100 million plateau in career purse earnings.
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Jason Bartlett (Mark Abramson / The Wall Street Journal)
An old adage states that ‘things always come in threes,’ and, of course, there is another pilot that is slowly but surely inching closer to a massive purse milestone.
Although he has already reached the plateau in Canadian funds, driver Tim Tetrick has set his sights on US$200 million in career purse earnings.
Heading into the Tuesday, September 25 slate of racing, Tetrick had steered his mounts to US$198,514,359 in purses over the course of his career. There will still be plenty of stakes assignments on the 2018 racing calendar for the resident of Woodwich Township, New Jersey.
Over the course of the last decade, Tetrick, 35, has cemented his legacy as one of harness racing’s best-ever catch drivers. His breakout season came in 2007, when he steered his mounts to a whopping $18.4 million in purses. The 2018 campaign has marked the twelfth consecutive year that Tetrick has driven his mounts to at least eight figures in purse earnings.