by Frank Drucker, Publicity Director, Empire City at Yonkers Raceway

Yonkers, NY — He’s obviously slowing down. Favored Homicide Hunter (Brian Sears, $5.50), after waltzing through last week’s 1-1/4 miles in 2:24.3, needed a full fifth of a second more this time around. Other than that alarming loss of alacrity, not much changed for the people’s preference Sunday afternoon (July 30) en route to winning Yonkers Raceway’s $68,000 Open Handicap Trot.

Georgia Panagi photo

Homicide Hunter repeats in the featured event at Yonkers Raceway on Sunday.

From an assigned eight-hole in the field of 11 as the scheduled ‘12-holer’, Springbank Sam N, came up lame and was a pre-race day scratch, Homicide Hunter’s job was a bit easier at the outset. Luminosity (George Brennan) and Centurion ATM (Dan Dube) both mamboed their way out of contention.

Lone lass Celebrity Eventsy (Shristian Lind) made the first lead, yielding to Rubber Duck (Joe Bongiorno). The one gave up the baton to Homicide Hunter after a :28.4 opening quarter-mile. As was the case a week ago, no ensuing issues at all with fractions of :58, 1:27.4, mile in 1:56.1 for the eventual winner. Homicide Hunter owned a 1-1/2 length lead into the lane before whipping Rubber Duck by 2-3/4 lengths.

Fashion Creditor (Eric Goodell), Taco Tuesday (Jordan Stratton) and Smalltownthrowdown (Jason Bartlett) settled for the minors.

For Homicide Hunter, a 5-year-old Mr. Cantab gelding owned by Crawford Farms Racing and trained by Chris Oakes, it was his fifth win in eight seasonal starts. The exacta paid $22, with the triple returning $175.50.

Sunday’s installment of the ‘New York, New York Double’ offered a winning combination of 4-Dunk a Din (Saratoga’s 3rd race) and 2-Take My Picture (Yonkers’ 10th race) paid $10.20 for every correct $1 wager. Total pool was $3,725.

Note the Raceway’s post time next Sunday (Aug. 6) is 12:30 p.m.