By Evan Pattak for the Meadows Standardbred Owners Association, photos Captain Albano and Wish You Well by Chris Gooden
Captain Albano did what was expected while Wish You Well pulled off the completely unexpected Saturday (July 20) at Hollywood Casino at The Meadows, as each won an elimination of the $400,000 Delvin Miller Adios Pace for the Orchids.
They’ll be joined in the $350,000 Adios final on July 27 by Huntingforchrome, Sweet Beach Life, Clever Cody, Timeisonmyside, Noblesville and Nuclear as well as Outer Banks, who reached the final as the fifth-place finisher with higher career earnings. It was a successful Adios start for trainers Travis Alexander and Ron Burke; each had three starters and saw two of those starters’ make it through.
Connections of Captain Albano and Wish You Well will select their post positions, with a shake determining their choosing order. All other post positions will be determined by a random draw Wednesday.
Last year’s Dan Patch Award-winning freshman male pacer, Captain Albano (Todd McCarthy) was sent off the 1-5 favorite and looked very much the part. He quarter-poled to the top for McCarthy and widened his advantage from there, scoring by 3-1/4 lengths in 1:49.2.Timeisonmyside (Anthony MacDonald) and Noblesville (Ronnie Wrenn Jr.) completed the ticket.
“I figured if I could get away and stay out of trouble, he’d be all right,” McCarthy said. “You have to be careful with them. He’s gotta come back next week, so you don’t want to spend too much fuel. We’ll draw close to the inside for the final; that definitely will be an advantage.”
The son of Captaintreacherous Angelou boosted his lifetime bankroll to $577,915 for trainer Noel Daley and owners Patricia Stable, LA Express Stable, Sjoblom Racing and Michael Dolan.
It appeared that the ending would be vastly different for Wish You Well (David Miller). The Bettor’s Wish Where’s Alice gelding, dismissed at 25-1, trailed by six lengths at the top of the lane, with no immediate racing room. But when Miller angled him off the cones, he exploded past the leader, Huntingforchrome (James MacDonald), and defeated him by 1-3/4 lengths in 1:49.1, with Sweet Beach Life third (Matt Kakaley).
“He had a big kick to him there, didn’t he?” Miller said. “I was just trying to get him into the final. And, jeez, when I got him out and got his plugs out, he kicked into a gear I wasn’t expecting. That was pretty cool.”