Records are made to be broken; it’s just that some are
harder to break than others. Take for instance Cincinnati Red’s pitcher Johnny
Vandermeer’s back- to- back no hitters in the late 1930’s. Or even Joe Di
Maggio’s 56 game hitting streak in 1941. They’re still standing and probably
will for many years to come.
But horse racing is different. Records are equaled and
occasionally surpassed especially in this day and age of finer breeding and
better racing equipment.
Many thought that Herve Filion’s record of
15,183 winners would take a while to be broken but in relatively short order
Dave Palone passed Herve’s mark and is on his way to establishing a
record of his own. And many will say Dave’s record will be hard to beat.
Although this next record cited is no way equivalent as to
the ones mentioned above, Walter Case Jr.’s 11,038 driving victories,
which is currently sixth best all time, is in jeopardy of being
overtaken by Billy “Zeke” Parker, Jr.
On Monday afternoon, August 26 at Monticello Raceway Zeke
Parker reined his trotter Famous Dude to a convincing wire to wire seven-
length triumph in a creditable time of 1:58. For the 59 year old Parker, it was
his 150th winning drive of the season—third best on the Mighty
M leaderboard this year—and more importantly it was his 11,028th win
of his illustrious career.
With that victory Parker now remains just10 wins
behind Case and soon he’ll rein his 11,039th winner. And when he
does, he’ll move up to sixth pace all time in races won in the
standardbred sport while moving Case back to seventh place.
Because Parkers career was mired mostly at the smaller
racetracks there are those who view his incredible statistics unimportant when
compared to those who race at the so-called ‘big time’.
But as someone once said about Zeke’s stats, “I don’t care
who he was driving against 11,000 is a lot of wins.”
Two years ago Parker, a native of the Pine Tree State, was
installed, and rightly so, the State of Maine’s Harness Racing Hall of Fame.
The United States Trotting Association, which keeps the
industry stats among other things, states that in his career-- through August
26, 2013 -- Parker has driven 54,360 times and won 11,028 races.
Assuming the numbers are correct Parker’s career win
percentage is .20 which means he won nearly 20 percent of the time.
And although Zeke is in the twilight of a wondrous
career he still has plenty of wins in him before he hangs up his whip and
gloves.
