East Rutherford, NJ — With the summer days coming to an end soon and children back in school, the Saturday (September 7) night card featured three Meadowlands Amateur Driving Club races. Tonight’s theme featured all winners paying eight dollars or more with no favorites winning.
Bruce Baker, isn’t a touchdown maker or even a baker, like his namesake, but he is a longtime veteran of the harness industry. He not only picked up his first driving victory of his career at the Big M but managed a double. After a quarter-move to the lead in the first race, he won by open lengths with trotter, Love This Bar for James Craparotta out of NJ and trainer Robert Ginsburg Jr. That trotting mile went in 1:56. Longshot Bacardi (Joe Lee) managed to squeeze in between rivals to finish second while Hunters Gal (William Clark Jr.) managed to pick up the show dough.
He took a different approach in the fourth race by sending his pacer, The Opener to the lead and didn’t let anyone by him as he set his own fractions and was able to stave off all the late contenders to win by a nose in 1:54.2. Hurrikane Ironhead (Anthony Verruso) finished second while Captain Terminator (John Calabrese) was third. He was victorious for trainer Bruce Saunders and owner Beverly Schiffman out of NJ.
In the sixth and final MADC race on the card, Baker almost pulled off the rare triple. This time the roles and exacta were reversed from the 4th race, as Anthony Verruso, driving his own Rock On Line, was able to come from mid pack and chase down the leaders to win by two lengths in 1:52.4. Baker, who looked out of it heading into the stretch, re-rallied for second aboard Its Showtime while the favorite, Stop Staring (Andrew Adamczyk) faded to third. Verruso, who resides in NY also owns the winner, who is trained by Symon Spicer.
The MADC series will be back when the Meadowlands fall meet begins in a few weeks.