BY
FRANK DRUCKER, Publicity Director, Empire City @ Yonkers Raceway
YONKERS, NY, Sunday, June 18,
2017—Westchester Sundays returned (June 18th), with an
out-every-step Rubber Duck (Joe Bongiorno, $47) winning Yonkers Raceway’s
$68,000 Open Handicap Trot.
The Father’s Day marquee trot was the
first race of the afternoon, one of four ‘French’ trots going at the
mile-and-one-quarter distance. It looked much different early as 3-4 choice
Hemi Seelster (Jason Bartlett) jumped it off from the pocket.
Meanwhile, there were four different
leaders through the first half-mile (:28.1, :57) including Springbank Sam N
(Jordan Stratton), Red Hot Herbie (Dan Dube), Not Afraid (Matt Kakaley) and
Opulent Yankee (Ake Svanstedt).
As for Rubber Duck from post position No.
7, he was quite wide into the first turn, then able to join the second tier
from third-over after a rival broke. He sat outside Opulent Yankee in and out
of a 1:25.4 three-quarters and 1:55.2 mile before wearing that rival down early
in the lane.
Rubber Duck had enough to hold Buen Camino
(Trond Smedshammmer) at bay, winning by three-quarters of a length in 2:26 for
the added distance. Red Hot Herbie lost the place photo, while Springbank Sam N
and a recovering Hemi Seelster settled for the remainder.
For eighth
choice Rubber Duck, a 5-year-old son of Muscle Mass co-owned by Albertans Blair
& Erna Corbeil and trained by Richard Johnson, it was his third win in a
dozen seasonal starts. The exacta paid $472, with the triple returning
$2,494.
The latest
installment of the ‘New York, New York Double’ offered a winning combination of
2-Divine Miss Grey (Belmont’s 3rd race) and 1-Jericho
(Yonkers’ 7th race) paid $10.20 for every correct $1 wager. Total
pool was $4,390.
