For Opinion, click here for View from the Racetrack Grandstand

Sunday, November 20, 2016

STRATTON REACHES 3,000-WIN PLATEAU

BY FRANK DRUCKER, Publicity Director, Empire City @ Yonkers Raceway

YONKERS, NY, Sunday, November 20, 2016—After nearly doing it with a 73-1 number a race earlier, driver Jordan Stratton won his 3,000th career race Sunday afternoon.

Stratton teamed with Bingo Queen ($7.70) for a powerful, first-up Yonkers Raceway victory in the $21,600, second-race trot. The pair negotiated the mile-and-a-quarter distance in 2:29 en route to a 2¾-length win.

            Stratton nearly blew up the tote board in the late-morning opener, missing a hard-charging head in the featured Open Handicap Trot.

“I appreciate the number, probably more than my family does,” Stratton said. Then, in a rather bold assumption, he offered that “they love me anyway.”

The affable 29-year-old Stratton, regular chauffeur of George Morton Levy Series winner Bit of a Legend N, was joined in the winner’s circle presentation by his brother, Cory, a pretty fair horseman in his own right.

Jordan Stratton has earned $45 million in purses in a career which began in 2006. His 225 wins place him fifth in this season’s local driver standings.