East Rutherford, NJ — With his first chance squandered at Freehold Raceway on Saturday (March 30), Anthony Verruso had only one more shot to make his birthday memorable and he came through during crunch time.

With the prohibitive favorite and old classy war horse getting the lead through a relatively soft first quarter, it seemed the inevitable was going to happen: another wire-to-wire victory for Mariner Seelster and Tony Beltrami.   With Ferdinand A (James Slendorn) sitting in the pocket and no outer flow developing, it looked to be these two that would vie for top billing in the stretch.

That is until Dakota “Action” Jackson aboard Jo Pa’s Warrior sprung first up, giving a perfect second over journey to Verruso aboard Yer So Bad.  Around the final turn, Jackson collared the long-time leader and seemed destined to be under the line first, but a determined birthday boy was under confident handling and able to get up in the final strides to win.

Slendorn squeezed through late to get up for second a nose ahead of Jackson while Beltrami and the war horse faded to fourth.  The Mike went in 1:52.1.  The 7-year old gelding is co-owned by Karen Taft out of NJ and Verruso himself out of NY and is trained by Symon Spicer.

The MADC series will roll into next week on Friday and Saturday.  The first post is scheduled for 6:20 p.m.