By Shawn F. Wiles
It comes as
no surprise that Jim Morrill Jr. continues to dominate the NYSS, much like
Wally Hennessy and Jeff Gregory have done on the past, this afternoon at
Monticello Raceway, Jim Morrill Jr won 5 of the 8 New York Sire Stakes
Races. Blue Chip Farms Stallion, Roll With Joe had 4 sons enter the
winners circle for the afternoon.
In the first
race, local favorite KJ Erich was well in hand for driver Jim Taggart Jr. as he
won by 6 lengths in 1:59:1 for co-owner and trainer Gary Messenger. In
the 2nd Division of the Excelsior’s A’s, is was the grey son
of Roll With Joe, White Rolls scoring a wire to wire victory for Tracy
Brainard, giving Morrill his first win of the afternoon
Race 4 was
the 1st division of Sire Stakes, this race had 3 lead changes before
the ½, Roll With Fred had the lead going to the ¼ pole before the antsy
Fine Diamond made his move to take the lead, Jim Morrill Jr was wrangling with
Carlos Danger trying to keep him in the hole. Roll with Fred came right back to
retake the lead, flowing live cover was Carlos Danger. Carlos Danger cleared
and stayed there the rest of the way, taking them past the ¾ in 1:29:0, Fine
Diamond made a weak attempt to challenge the leaders but his challenge stalled
in the paddock turn. It appeared that Morrill was home free, but Brett Miller
had Roll With Fred in high gear in deep stretch, to nip Carlos Danger by a head
in 1:58:3
Tim
Lanpher’s One Summer Chance was the winner of race 5 Excelsior B in 2:01:3. In
the other Excelsior B action in the 8th race. Zac and Forth broke
his maiden in impressive fashion for trainer Thomas Merton and owner Gary Haas,
winning in 1:59:4.
2nd
division of the NYSS, saw the heavy favorite Autotune Hanover work hard for the
lead, only to go off stride coming out of the 1st turn. Skip Jive
was in the 2 hole when the favorite broke and inherited the lead. He
stayed there and won by 3 in 1:57:1 for Trainer Paul Kelly and driver Mark
McDonald.
The most
impressive individual performance of the day came in Race 13, last heat of the
NYSS, Joe Larry N Curly shot out of the gate and carried the field thru
fractions of 28:, 59:0 & 1:28:3, in the paddock turn HudsonandBernard made
his move, but was quickly dispatch as Morrill let mount out a notch and quickly
dispatched his completion. Joe Larry N Curly was well in hand to win by 3
lengths in 1:56:3, the fastest race of the day, last ¼ in 28.0. Joe Larry N
Curly, a colt by Roll With Joe is trained by Mark Harder. In the winner’s
circle Jim Morrill, a man of few words, said “He is the real deal” This win
gave Jimmy, Morrill his 5th win on the afternoon. Total handle
for the 13 race card was $602,921.
Monticello
Raceway is racing Mon – Fri this week, with a special Fireworks night card on
Friday July 3, featuring more Sire Stake action when 2 Year Old Trotting Colts
come to town.
