Wilkes-Barre, PA — Overcoming a sloppy track, a first-over move, and very tough opposition, the Shadow Play four-year-old gelding Backstreet Shadow showed speed and gameness in taking Saturday’s (Aug. 17) $30,000 Great Northeast Open Series event for fast-class pacing horses in 1:49.2.

On paper, three horses seemed to have the best credentials – None Bettor A (George Napolitano Jr.) was sent off as the 8-5 favorite, with Backstreet Shadow (Pat Berry) 9-5 and Highalator (Richard Still) 2-1 – and they were the three major players in the race. None Bettor A made the early lead, yielded to Highalator before the :26.4 quarter, then retook in front of the stands and got a bit of a rest to a :55.3 half.

Backstreet Shadow won his fourth straight during Great Northeast Open Series action Saturday. Curtis Salonick Photo.

Backstreet Shadow, who had tucked fourth from the outside post seven early, launched his first-over bid off the second turn for driver Pat Berry, and the sharp pacer went his own third quarter raw in 26 flat to get within a length of None Bettor A by the 1:22.1 three-quarters. Around the turn and through the stretch those two continued to fight, joined in the lane by a resurgent Highalator in the Pocono Pike. Backstreet Shadow showed his grittiness by defeating None Bettor A (absent for four weeks) by a head, with Highalator just another neck back in third.

Backstreet Shadow has now won four races in a row and ten on the year, boosting his seasonal earnings to $200,700 and lifetime bankroll to $369,646. Ron Burke trains the talented sidewheeler for Burke Racing Stable LLC and Weaver Bruscemi LLC, Lawrence Karr, and J&T Silva- Purnel & Libby.

The rest of the races in the report were conducted over a “fast” track, before a mid-card hard rain and a slight weather delay.

Atta Boy Dan got revenge on the horse who snapped his recent five-race winning streak, Benji’s Best, ending that one’s own four-race victory skein with a 1:49.3 engine victory in the $20,000 claiming handicap pace for driver George Napolitano Jr. (a five-time winner on the night), trainer Mike Watson, and owner Clifford Grundy. The victorious Western Terror ten-year-old gelding, now with 65 career wins and $886,417 in winnings, bested his rival by 1-1/4 lengths – and then both were promptly claimed for the highest-level price of $40,000, Atta Boy Dan for his tenth straight start.

19-year-old provisional driver Jack Killeen, an Irishman who came to America on a five-year visa to pursue his dream of being a full-time horseman, made his Pocono debut a smashing one, guiding Duc De Guise F to a $65.20 victory after coming from last down the backstretch to be just up in 1:55.4. The French-bred trotter, whom Killeen co-owns and had driven in his native land last year before crossing the Atlantic, showed no rust from nearly a year away from the races, putting in a big late kick deep in the Pocono Pike to pass everybody for trainer Michael Seddon and the partnership of Killeen and Sinners Racing.

In the very next race, another horse making his Stateside debut was victorious – the Somebeachsomewhere gelding San Domino A, who in his second move closed with solid strides to take a 1:49.1 mark in his first U.S. race. George Napolitano Jr. drove the Aussie-bred pacer, who looks headed for bigger things, for trainer Andrew Harris and the ownership of Joe P Racing LLC and Oldford Racing LLC.