Blue Creek Angie has joined three others at the top of the North American leaderboard in races won this year when Bruce Aldrich Jr. guided the eight-year-old On The Attack mare to her 19th seasonal triumph at Monticello Raceway on Monday
, December 26.
She stopped the timer at 1:58.2, although her seasonal best was a 1:55.4 clocking in September. Now this season--which is quickly drawing to an end--from 42 trips to post Blue Creek Angie sports 19 wins, 11 seconds and four thirds and nearly $50,000 in purse money. Perhaps more remarkable is the fact that the pacing mare now has 72 career wins. She’s proudly owned by Jeanne Zukowski of Lake Peekskill, New York.
Perhaps more amazingly than that is the fact that veteran reinsman Bruce Aldrich Jr. has been the regular driver of two of the four horses with 19 wins this year. His other mount, Edies Desire, owned by Peggy Olmstead of Monticello, New York, also has 19 wins this year. Moreover, Bruce Aldrich, Jr., is putting the cap on another fine racing season. Besides his victory with Blue Creek Angie that afternoon, the 43-year-old driver won two other races on the card and now has a seasonal total of 415 wins. And after a year-long battle for driving supremacy with Billy “Zeke” Parker, Jr., Aldrich vaulted away from his nemesis in early December and now leads the bearded wonder by 28 victories. So now is the time to put a circle around Aldrich’s name as leading driver at Monticello Raceway during the 2011 racing season.
Aldrich is approaching a personal milestone of 4,000 career driving victories and barring any unforeseen circumstances the Brattleboro, Vermont native will reach that total next year. Currently he has driven 3,809 winners.
“I’m proud of what I have accomplished this year and beating my boyhood idol Billy Parker [Jr.] in races won here was no easy task. Zeke can still drive with the best of them and his 10,600 winners can attest to that,” Aldrich said. “Horses from my barn raced real well for me this season and I was lucky enough to get many live catch-drives, which helped me keep pace with Zeke all year long.”
This will mark the second consecutive year that Aldrich has won the Mighty M driving title. Although he was the driver with the most wins during the first decade of the 21st century at Monticello Raceway he had only won one leading driver title over that period.
(Monticello Raceway)