Jolt springs upset in Harrington Open

Harrington, DE — Johnny Waite’s Jolt ($45.40, Daryl Bier) earned his sixth win of the year in an upset win in the $18,000 Open on Monday at Harrington Raceway.

The 6-year-old Powerful Toy gelding set a hot pace of :27, :55 and 1:24.1 before holding off a late charge by Power Of Tara N in deep stretch for the win. Volo was third. Race favorite As Bad As Thunder, who had won four of his last five, had a troubled trip from post seven and finished fourth.

A former $20,000 claimer, Jolt has banked nearly $60,000 already in 2012 for owner/trainer Waite, who claimed Jolt at the 2011-2012 Dover Downs meet.

Drivers Tony Morgan, Ross Wolfenden and Bier each had two wins on the card.

— Matt Sparacino

Monticello Raceway
Muddy race courses don’t bother Billy “Zeke” Parker, Jr. He’s raced on plenty of them. So with the rain falling on the afternoon of May 21, Zeke added three more wins to his seasonal and lifetime totals. Two of Parker’s winners were trained by Gary Messenger as the veteran conditioner moves toward the top of the trainer’s leaderboard. Parker and Messenger combined for a pair of trotting victories, first with Brenda Messenger’s veteran Hey Nugget in a 2:02 clocking and then with John Wagner, Syl King, Jr. and Dr. Scott Woogen’s Four Starz F in 2:03. However, Zeke’s fastest drive of the day over the muddy race course came behind Woody Hoblitzell and Linda Buchu’s Foreign Soil when he hustled the 4-year-old I Am A Fool pacing mare to a gate-to-wire 1:57.3 victory. Foreign Soil had been racing in $5,000 claimers at Pompano Park and was purchased by Hoblitzell and Buchu on April 16 and sent to Monticello to trainer Bruce Aldrich, Sr. In her first start here on April 30 Foreign Soil made a break behind the gate and finished last. Since then Parker and the pacing mare have reeled-off three consecutive victories. Parker got a slow start on the 2012 season after having prostate cancer surgery in early January and did not return to the sulky until mid-March. And even when he got back in the bike wins came slowly at first. However, with the three he added to his totals on May 21 the 17-time driving champion now has 50 winners at the meeting and finds himself in unfamiliar territory in eighth place on the local leaderboard.