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Tuesday, May 22, 2012

MR - PARKER WINS THREE IN THE MUD; NOW HAS 10672 IN HIS CAREER---7TH BEST ALL-TIME

Muddy race courses don’t bother Billy “Zeke” Parker, Jr. He’s raced on plenty of them. So with the rain falling intermittently on the afternoon of Monday,  May 21 Zeke nonchalantly added three more wins  to his seasonal and lifetime totals.

Two of Parker’s winners were trained by Gary Messenger as the veteran conditioner   moves toward the top of the trainer’s leaderboard.

Parker and Messenger combined for a pair of trotting victories; first with Brenda Messenger’s  veteran Hey Nugget in a 2:02 clocking and then with John Wagner, Syl King, Jr. and Dr. Scott Woogen’s,  Four Starz F in 2:03.

However, Zeke’s fastest ride of the day  over the muddy race course came behind Woody Hoblitzell and Linda Buchu’s , Foreign Soil when he hustled  the  4-year- old I Am A  Fool pacing mare to a  gate to wire 1:57.3 victory.

Foreign Soil  had been racing in $5000 claimers at Pompano Park  and  was purchased by Hoblitzell and Buchu  on April 16  and sent to Monticello to trainer Bruce Aldrich, Sr.  In her first start here on April 30 Foreign Soil  made a break behind the gate and finished  last. Since then Parker and the pacing mare have reeled- off three consecutive victories.

Parker got a slow start on the 2012 season after having prostate cancer surgery in early January and did  not  return to the sulky until mid-March. And even when he got back in the bike wins came slowly at first. However, with the three he added to his totals on May 21 the 17-time driving champion now has 50 winners at the meeting  and finds himself in unfamiliar territory in eighth place on the local leaderboard.

As he approaches his 59th birthday Parker has mellowed with age. No longer with the killer instinct of old, he still can handle himself with the very best. Moreover, after his recent life-threatening surgery   Zeke   has gotten philosophical about his life and his career.

“ I went through some scary times earlier this year and I’m thankful everything worked out alright,” Parker acknowledged  and then added; “ Ya’ know, when you’re lying in a hospital  bed as I was,  you have a lot of time to think and about where you’ve been and where you’re going. I’m proud of what I have accomplished  and maybe things won’t be as great as they once were,  but I’m just glad I’m back  doing what I love to do.”