from harness publicists around North America

Tuesday’s Racing Roundup features stories from Dover Downs and Monticello Raceway.

Boots Place wins at Dover

Dover, DE — Boots Place won the $30,000 Mares Open pace on a rainy Tuesday, Feb. 23 at Dover Downs over a sloppy track.

Boots Place, piloted by Eric Goodell, took the lead from favorite Gabrielles Girl (Corey Callahan) on the backstretch then out-legged Chloes Silver Star and Ron Pierce to the wire by a long neck to win the week’s top distaff event with a 1:54.4 effort. A 5-year-old daughter of Park Place-Put The Boots, it was the second win of the year for owner Bernard Segebade and the second win on the card for driver Goodell. Alice’s Restaurant, handled by Tony Morgan, was the third place mare.

— Marv Bachrad

Dobson, Aldrich continue to spar at the Mighty M

Monticello, NY — The battle ensues. Both Billy Dobson and Bruce Aldrich, Jr. are in a dogfight for top driving honors over the first two months of the season at Monticello Raceway, and the battle figures to go on until the curtain comes down on the 2010 campaign in late December.

Bruce Aldrich, Jr.

At the beginning of the race card of Tuesday, Feb. 23, Dobson had a two-win lead on Aldrich, 55-53. Aldrich, who is nearing 3,000 career wins, quickly closed the gap after winning two of the first three races on Tuesday afternoon over a race track soaked by the continuous falling snow.

Billy Dobson

He copped the first race with George Munniksma and Diane Horn’s I’m A Nut, in 2:00.3, and then won the third with PB’s Racing Stable’s , Jurassic Hanover in a time of 2:01.

However, Dobson quickly retaliated. He won the fifth race with Jack and Rose Deluca’s, Another Mike, in 2:00.2, and then won the sixth behind the Moen Stables’ Blue Collar Raider, in 2:00.3.

And he wasn’t done there. He strung together back-to-back wins in the eighth and ninth races to go ahead of Aldrich again, this time leading the track’s “Driver of the Decade” by four wins. Dobson won the eighth with Cookie N Mo Sttables and Jonathan Klee Racing’s One More Day, in 2:00.3, and he won the ninth with Mary Ellen Abbott’s, Fox Valley Valhala, in 2:03.

When Aldrich reined Sitting Bull’s Stable’s Waterfront Success to his third consecutive triumph, a 1:59.3 triumph in the 10th race, not only did it close the gap between him and Dobson to 59-56, but it left him just one victory short of his milestone 3,000th career win.

— John Manzi