by Ellen Harvey, Harness Racing Communications

East Rutherford, NJ — Foiled Again, who will be 10 years old in a month and a day, won the $512,000 TVG Free For All Pacing final on Saturday night (Nov. 30) at the Meadowlands by a head in 1:49.2 against a field with $17.7 million in collective earnings.

The win pushed Foiled Again’s lifetime earnings to $6,030,968.

Lisa photo

Driver Yannick Gingras celebrates Foiled Again’s win in the TVG FFA Pace.

Golden Receiver and Corey Callahan were first off the gate, hitting the quarter-mile mark in :26 with Bolt The Duer on his back.

Foiled Again was right up and at him at the three-eighths to take the lead away and took the field to the :53.1 half. Pet Rock made a bid for the lead past the half but could not get by Foiled Again through the 1:22 three-quarters.

Throughout the deep stretch, Foiled Again (Yannick Gingras) faced relentless pressure from the 8-year-old Golden Receiver, second oldest horse in the race, who came up the rail, but Foiled Again maintained his march to the finish line for the win.

Bolt The Duer (Mark MacDonald) was third, Sweet Lou (Matt Kakaley) fourth and Modern Legend (John Campbell) fifth. The 3-year-old Captaintreacherous wound up sixth and Pet Rock faded to ninth.

Foiled Again, who paid $7.80 to win, is trained by Ron Burke for Burke Racing, Weaver Bruscemi and JJK Stables.

“I heard some screaming up the inside and I looked down and Ronnie (Pierce, driving Dynamic Youth, who made a break in the first turn) was running but I was happy to get through the first turn,” said Gingras. “I wanted to take my time to move to the front, but I didn’t really want Pet Rock moving with me. I waited a little bit there.

“They were expecting Pet Rock on the front, me first up and Captaintreacherous second over but I told a couple of my friends if I could get my legs on the front I don’t think he can be beat.

“He’s really sharp right now and I had all the confidence in the world in him. If he doesn’t get tortured, he’s hard to pass.”

Asked about the horse’s winter plans, Burke said, “It’s always been go straight to Kentucky because he’s headed to Balmoral but now it’s probably to North Carolina and being shut down until the middle of January and then start coming back. He doesn’t get long rests, he races a lot. So basically it will be the same path from the last couple years. It seems to work for him.

“Even if you’d said at the beginning of the year that he’d do this, we’d have said we couldn’t believe it. He’s gotten even better, this is his greatest year. He took on all comers, 29 starts. That’s the most I’ve raced him since he was a 4-year-old so it’s like we’ve asked him to do a lot and he’s done more than we asked.”