Last summer Aaron Byron was challenging Jimmy Marohn,
Jr. for leading driver honors at Tioga Downs. With some 100 fewer starts Byron
finished second to Marohn in driving victories, 76-55.
And now that Byron has moved to the Mighty M he once again
will compete against young Jimmy. But he certainly doesn’t expect
to put up the same numbers against Marohn as he did at Tioga Downs
because Marohn has been driving here since the beginning of the
season and his 254 driving victories ranks him second in races won to Bruce
Aldrich, Jr.’s 322.
However, since coming here Byron has shown a great driving
ability and in just a few weeks he’s won multiple races on various
cards and yesterday Byron produced a hat trick from five drives.
He copped the first race with the Maiden Manor Stables, So
Feminine in a time of 1:56.3. Sent off at odds of 16-1, So Feminine paid
$34.60.
Byron then won the fifth with Barry Charles’ What Rusty in
1:55.2 and rewarded his backers with a $22.20 win payoff.
Win number three followed in race six when
he guided Gerry Decker’s May Night to a 1:58.4 triumph
and returned a n other good win mutuel of $17.60.
“When I left the winners circle after my third win
some were calling me, ‘longshot Aaron’ ” Byron admitted, almost
sheepishly. “My wins were all catch-drives and though they went off at long
prices they races like favorites.”
Byron, from Cambridge Ontario, comes from a family of
horsemen. His dad, Steve Byron has won over 3250 races and driving titles at
some Canadian racetracks.
“Most of my family are horsemen and I grew-up in the
industry,” Byron said. “I’ve raced at many tracks in Canada and over the
past few seasons in US and I’ve done pretty well wherever I raced.”
For all intents and purposes the 28 year old reinsman
has been driving for just eight seasons and has already driven 1138 winners.
Thus far this year he has had 148 winners.
When asked what’s on the horizon for him Byron stated, “I
moved my base of operations to the states and plan on spending the winter
here.”
