BY FRANK DRUCKER,
Publicity Director, Empire City @ Yonkers Raceway
YONKERS,
NY, Sunday, January 15, 2017—Favored Rubber Duck (Joe Bongiorno, $3.50) did not
disappoint Sunday afternoon, handily winning Yonkers Raceway’s $56,000 Open
Handicap Trot.
Forwardly-placed from post position No. 6, in his
featured trot debut (three of the 11 starters broke early), Rubber Duck was
actually beaten to the early punch.
Red Hot Herbie, starting directly outside of
‘Duck,’ had the first lead before yielding to the subject of this story.
Rubber Duck made his lead just at a :29.4
opening quarter-mile, then rated a :59.3 half and 1:29.2 three-quarters.
There
was a minimal challenge from Luck O The Irish (Matt Kakaley) going toward the
1:58.2 milepost, but Rubber Duck disposed that and opened a length-and-a-half
lead into the lane.
He
widened in the lane, defeating ‘Herbie’ by 2¼ lengths in 2:27.3 for the
mile-and-a-quarter.
Lily’s Swan Pond (George Brennan), Tweet Me (Pat
Lachance) and Springbank Sam N (Jordan Stratton) rounded out the payees.
For Rubber Duck, a now-5-year-old son of Muscle
Mass co-owned by Albertans Blair and Erna Corbeil and trained by Richard
Johnson, he’s won both of his season starts. The exacta paid $17.80, the triple
returned $65.50 and the superfecta paid $405.
Sunday’s Pick 5 wager, beginning with a
double-carryover of $6,426.84, attracted $11,029 of fresh investments. The
winning quintet (1/2/2/7/3) returned $14,698.75 for the single winning
half-a-buck selector.
Sunday also offered the first ‘New York, New York Double’ of the season, with the winning combination of 5-Lockdown (Aqueduct’s 3rd race) and 1–Lo Rail Crossing (Yonkers’ 6th race) returning $14.70 for every correct $1 wager (total pool $6,553)
