by Mike Paradise, publicity director, Maywood Park
Melrose Park, IL — If the last two Friday night feature finishes at Maywood Park are any indication, all the right ingredients are in Friday night’s Free For All field for another very close and very exciting conclusion.
The seventh race $22,000 feature brings out, to say the least, a well-balanced field of six pacers. Four of the starters — Fresh Ingredient, Abouttolosecontrol, Camtown Pacer and Largeandincharge — have either been on the front or back end of a nose decision in their last two Maywood Park outings.
Largeandincharge (9-5, Ryan Anderson) came on with a strong rush to finish a nose better than Abouttolosecontrol (5-2, Mike Oosting) in our September 10 Free For All. However, one week later, the four-year-old Joe Anderson trainee’s last burst came up a nose short behind the winning Fresh Ingredient (6-1, Andy Miller) and the pacesetting runner-up Camtown Pacer (3-1, Tony Morgan) in the September 17 feature.
Adding to the mix in Friday’s Free For All is Michael Polansky’s Dr Hanniball (8-1, Dave Magee), who was assigned post one, and Tripoli Stable’s Themistokles (10-1, Tim Tetrick), who will leave from post five.
Fresh Ingredient drew another inside post — the two — and that could help put the seven-year-old Jim Eaton trained gelding up close, just as it did when he got a pocket trip and posted a 1:52.1 win in a four-horse photo.
The hard-luck horse in the seventh race field has to be number three Abouttolosecontrol, who has amassed $103,724 this season for the Brian Pinske Stable of Crete, Illinois.
The five-year-old gelding started off the year with a pair of victories in his first three starts, and he posted a 1:51.3 season-best mile (:26.1 last quarter) in an April 17 Free For All at Balmoral Park.
However, the Nelson Willis trained pacer has lost 19 consecutive starts since, despite missing only two purse checks during the streak and 15 of those losses came in the circuit’s top level overnight events.
In addition, Abouttolosecontrol has picked up some very narrow losses along the way and several have come with some poor racing luck.
In last Saturday’s September 25 Free For All at Balmoral Park, Abouttolosecontrol was stuck inside, shuffled back to eighth at the three-quarters — some 11-plus lengths off the leader — and found racing room much too late when he finished fourth, beaten less than three lengths in Quick Pulse Mindale’s 1:48 world record mile with driver Tony Morgan, the fastest ever on any Chicago area track.