by Tim Bojarski, Batavia Downs Media Relations

Batavia, NY — The lake effect snows blew intoGenesee County making Batavia Downs look like the North Pole and MydelightBluechip made like Rudolph and led all the way to win the $10,000 Fillies andMares Open Handicap Pace on the last Wednesday night (Dec. 6) of racing for themeet.

Paul White photo

Mydelight Bluechip led all the way to win the $10,000 Fillies and Mares Open Handicap Pace on the last Wednesday night (Dec. 6) of racing for the meet.

Mydelight Bluechip (Ben Mc Neil) was on a “take noprisoners” mission as she left and parked Little Joke (Billy Davis Jr.) andVoltina (Kevin Cummings) to the half in :56.3. As the race went on to the secondcircuit, Little Joke continued to apply the pressure but Voltina faded away,allowing Miss Irish Rose A (Larry Stalbaum) room to advance to the outside fromsixth and move into a closer third position.

Moving through the last turn Mydelight Bluechip putaway both of those challengers and led by two lengths. At that point it lookedlike she’d wrapped things up until Squeeze This (Drew Monti) and Hey Kobe(Shawn McDonough) came flying late, gobbling up ground in the stretch. ButMydelight Bluechip dug in and pulled out the win by a narrowing margin in1:57.2.

Privately purchased on November 11 by Ellen McNeil, Mydelight Bluechip ($20.80) scored her first victory for her new ownerand third of the year overall. The 5-year-old daughter of Bettor’s Delight istrained by John Mc Neil III, rounding out the Mc Neil trifecta in the race.

In the co-featured $8,000 distaff Open II,Sportsmuffler (Drew Monti) took the lead before the half and from there, leftthe rest of the field in her rear-view mirror as she pulled away to aseven-length win in 1:56.2. Owned by Lav Racing Stable and trained by MikeCarrubba, Sportsmuffler ($3.70) registered her 10th win of the year and pushedher earnings to $54,149 as a result.

Drew Monti was red hot on a cold night, winning fourraces on the card. Besides scoring with Sportsmuffler, Monti also won withTymal Luckynpink (1:57.1, $5.50), Juxlivin My Dream (1:59.2, $10.20) and HoldOn Tightly (2:02.3, $21.20). Monti actually won a fifth race with P L Hellcatin the tenth race but was disqualified and placed second for a Eurorailviolation.

Open Water (Jim McNeight Jr.) who finished secondin that tenth race was placed first and gave trainer Jim McNeight his 1,000thcareer training victory. McNeight’s training win total has earned $3,495,864 inpurse money for his connections. McNeight also has 3,587 driving wins with anadditional purse amount of $13,133,205 to go along.

The driver’s race just got a little moreinteresting after Wednesday night. Larry Stalbaum still leads with 122 wins andRay Fisher Jr. is second with 119. But on the heels of his big performance,Drew Monti draws into a closer third with 116 wins, only six behind the leaderwith only four days of racing left in the 2017 meet.

Racingresumes at Batavia Downs on Friday night (Dec. 8) with post time set at 6 p.m.