by Brian J. Mazurek, for Buffalo Raceway

Hamburg, NY — It didn’t take long for driver Frank Milby to make himself known at Buffalo Raceway as he drove longshot Memumsnotnice ($38.60) to a stunning half-length victory in the featured $10,500 Fillies and Mares Open Pace Wednesday evening (January 14).

It topped the successful opening night of the 92-day meet at Buffalo Raceway. Director of Operations Jon Cramer was delighted with the opener. “It was our best handle in at least 10 years. The handle was $377,777. There was some great racing out there tonight and some nice prices.”

Milby, a regular at Dover Downs and Rosecroft Raceway, found his initial appearance at the Hamburg half-mile oval a memorable one. He smartly sent Memumsnotnice past the pace-setting S A Lowe (Billy Dobson) in the stretch. They covered the mile in 1:57.1 over a good track on the crisp, clear night. Seascape Hanover (Ron Beback Jr.) took the show spot.

S A Lowe set the fractions with times of 28.4, 59.0 and 1:28.2 and looked comfortable on the front-end but Memumsnotnice had other ideas. She followed the cover of the parked Ashlee’s Cool Gal down the backstretch and was tipped three-wide by Milby at the three-quarter pole. From there, Milby used some mild encouragement on Memumsnotnice in the lane and she responded to draw off by a half-length over a stubborn S A Lowe.

Owned by John Mungillo and Thatsideofthefence LLC and trained by Mungillo, it was the 16th career victory for Memumsnotnice and pushed the 6-year-old mare’s lifetime earnings to $260,200.

Shawn Gray had a impressive return to Buffalo Raceway as he registered a four-bagger and also had a training win. Kevin Cummings also posted four driving victories while JD Perrin and Maria Rice each had two training wins.

Racing will resume on Friday night with a 10-race program set for 6:35 p.m.