by John Berry, for Pompano Park

Pompano Beach, FL — Hall of Fame driver Wally Hennessey put on a Hall of Fame performance at Pompano Park on Wednesday night (May 16), winning six of his seven driving assignments.

In pushing his Pompano Park seasonal total to an astounding 219, Hennessey improved on his already lofty “Ty Cobb” like UDR of .405 coming into the action, while improving his winning percentage to more than 26 percent.

Skip Smith photo

Wally Hennessey won six of his seven drives at Pompano Park on Wednesday night, including this one with Just Like Lloyd.

He took the opener with Northern Dali ($3.40), finished third in the second race, and after sitting out race three, captured the remaining five races on the eight-race program, winning with Just Like Lloyd ($5.20), Metro Glide ($3.60), Vodkancaviar ($6.80), Pink Gardenias ($3.60) and William Star ($3.20).

Hennessey now has won 9,696 races during his Hall of Fame career.

His heroics enabled trainers Gaston Lareau and Jamie Daley to attain training doubles with Lareau’s successes being with J P Houle Stables’ Northern Dali and Lareau Stable’s own Metro Glide while Jamie Daley enjoyed winner’s circle ceremonies with the Mike White and Dale Gilmour owned Just Like Lloyd and David Linker’s Vodkancaviar — both enjoying their first wins of the season.

Reflecting on the night, a humble Hennessey said, “It’s OK to give me credit for getting them home but, when you get catch-drives like this, it’s very important to give credit to the trainers and caretakers of these horses getting them ready to go to the gate and perform at their best.

“You never know how they’ll be going to the gate, so tonight, besides Gas (Gaston Lareau) and Jamie (Daley), both (Tom) Bigler and (James) Quinn had their horses ready to race tonight. So, they and their caretakers are really the ones that deserve the credit.”

Racing continues on Sunday night with post time set at 7:20 p.m. The Super Hi-5 Finale has a carryover of $12,232.