Lets Go Bucks, who captured the Ohio Breeders Championship for sophomore trotters last September, added another notch to his girth when he captured Monday’s $22,500 final of the Ray Paver Sr. Memorial Series at Miami Valley Raceway.
With the victory, the now four-year-old And Away We Go gelding’s career bounty exceeds $140,000 for owners Jim Burnett and Tim Homan.
As the gate opened in the Paver final, Cant Fire Me (Trace Tetrick), a winner of divisions of both preliminary legs, exploded to the lead and held it through early quarter-mile fractions of :27 and :56.1. When Lets Go Bucks (Dan Noble) also riding a two-race win streak, pulled from the four-hole along the pylons down the backstretch he encountered little resistance and rushed with relative ease to the front before reaching the third quarter station in 1:25.
Maintaining an open lengths lead through the stretch, Lets Go Bucks and Noble coasted through the wire in 1:54.3, knocking one-fifth of a second off his lifetime best clocking taken in the OBC at Delaware last September. Ultimate Shopper (Elliott Deaton) raced gamely on the outside the last half of the mile to finish second, while Deep Question (Kayne Kauffman) was third.
Prominent Ohio trainer Bill Dailey conditions both the winner and show finisher.
It is hard to believe after tens of thousands of Standardbreds have been foaled in Ohio over the years, that the name Lets Go Bucks was still available in 2013 in the USTA database. Even harder to believe is that Lets Go Bucks, a near $100,000 winner in 2016 and riding an impressive two-race win streak, was dispatched at odds of 3-1 by the Buckeye faithful in the Miami Valley grandstand.
(Miami Valley)