“Most drivers get jitters in the morning, everyone knows the significance of [the Little Brown Jug]," driver Scott Zeron has said, reflecting on his Jug win with Ontario-sired Michaels Power. "You can’t think of it as any other race, I don’t care what anyone says. But when I got onto that track, the nerves just went away."
Even though the racing world is more than a week removed from the 2012 edition of the Jug, Zeron's win aboard the Casie Coleman-trained Camluck gelding, the victory is still resonating north of the border in Ontario.
In a piece by Rob Longley in the Toronto Sun, the 23-year-old resident of Oakville, Ont. explained that even though he was the only one in the race bike, his father, horseman Rick Zeron, was right there with him, figuratively.
“The first thing I did in the winner’s circle was thank my dad, this one was for him,” Zeron said in an interview. “He always had it on his bucket list — this was the one race he had wanted. He told me that the second he (Michaels Power) crossed the wire, he was in tears. He just lost it.”
Although Scott did have his father on his mind, he was all business in the race bike, even though he did find some time to soak it all in.
“Midway around the last turn, I knew I was going to win the race. I was smiling the whole way down the lane.”
(With files from the Toronto Sun)