Dayton, OH – Benefitting from some wicked early fractions, Winwood Mac (Chris Page) brushed to the lead at the three-quarter pole and then held off a hard-charging Night Pro (Dale Decker) in the stretch to capture Saturday night’s (Nov. 17) $18,000 Open I Pace at Hollywood Dayton Raceway.

Winwood Mac holds off Night Pro in 1:50.4 to win the $18,000 Open I at Dayton Raceway.  Conrad Photo

Three horses sped three-wide to the quarter pole in :25.3, with Holdingallthecards (Jeremy Smith) ultimately prevailing and leading the field to the halfway mark of the race in an astonishing :53.2.  Once Winwood Mac passed the tiring pacesetter at the 1:22 third-quarter station, the only challengers were fellow closers Night Pro and Account Rollover (Trace Tetrick), who managed to garner the show dough.

The 1:50.4 score was Winwood Mac’s fifth of 2018 and increased his seasonal earnings to $83,081.  Dispatched at 3-1 odds, the winner returned an $8 mutuel while the exacta was worth $62 and the 50-cent trifecta kicked back $97.10.  The 5-year-old son of Canyon Wind is owned by Burke Racing, Weaver Bruscemi and Phil Collura and trained by Ron Burke.

In a co-featured $15,000 Open II Handicap Pace, the two outside gate horses closed strongest of all in the lane to produce a $41.80 exacta.  Granite (Jason Brewer, $10.40) tripped the final beam in 1:51 to top Hot Rod Dylan (Mike Oosting) by a narrow margin.  Longshot Prince Bayard (Randy Tharps) weaved through traffic in the stretch to complete a $122.30 50-cent trifecta.

Ken Rucker trains Granite, a 5-year-old Real Desire gelding, for The Panhellenic Stable.  The winner now sports six seasonal tallies and $62,899 in 2018 earnings.