Dover: Captain Albano tallies in Progress Pace elimination

A bulky field of 11 3-year-old male pacers lined up for a single $35,000 Progress Pace elimination on Thursday night at Bally's Dover, and Captain Albano, coming in off a victory in the Matron over the oval on November 7, was the winner in 1:49 4/5.

Better Is Nice (Andy McCarthy) showed the best early speed from post five and got to the lead before the 27 second opening quarter, but Captain Albano (Todd McCarthy) pressed on two-wide after he floated away from post three and grabbed control away from him after that marker. Following Captain Albano was North America Cup champion and supplemental entrant Nijinsky (Louis Roy), and when he moved up to challenge Captain Albano prior to the 54-second half-mile station, McCarthy elected to leave him on the outside.

Captain Albano and Nijinsky continued to tussle through three-quarters in 1:22 flat, but Nijinsky began to fade early on the final bend, which left Captain Albano clear on the front-end the remainder of the turn and into the stretch. Better Is Nice, who swung to the outside, and Calicojack Hanover (Dan Dube), who had pace in the passing lane after he got shuffled on the inside from the pocket at the quarter, both gained through the lane, but not enough to reach Captain Albano, as he prevailed by half a length. Better Is Nice was second from Calicojack Hanover and Nijinsky was fourth. Also making the final were Gem Quality (Tim Tetrick), Its Saturday Night (Bradley Chisholm), Captain Luke (Corey Callahan) and Breeders Crown champion Mirage Hanover (Dexter Dunn), who didn't make any impression from third-over.

"There are always pretty tricky decision in those full fields, but my guy, he's so handy out of the gate, and then after that, I was just trying to see where everyone was going to settle. I pretty much wanted to be the last horse making my way to the front, and it kind of worked out like that," Todd McCarthy said post-race. "It's just a credit to the horse's performance; the amount of work that he can do and still hold up and kick like that in the end. He's just a phenomenal little horse and Noel's (trainer Noel Daley) just done a great job with him."

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A Captaintreacherous colt bred by Fred Hertrich III and his All American Harnessbreds, Captain Albano is owned by Patricia Stable, L. A. Express Stable LLC., Sjoblom Racing Inc. and Michael Dolan. Captain Albano has 18 wins from 26 career starts, has banked $1,430,273 and paid $4.00 to win as the even-money choice.

"They don't always come back, but he's come back well. He really hasn't had a bad run. He's had a couple bad, unfortunate trips, or whatever, but he's a very genuine horse. He shows up all the time and he's got gate speed to put himself into the race," remarked Daley about Captain Albano, who will conclude his racing career in the Progress Pace final. "I just watched him from outside, so I wasn't sure (how strong he was) when (Better Is Nice) was coming at him, but Todd said he was trying not to pop the plugs. He said he just popped them like 50 out, and he said he went forward again, so he was fine. He was just not trying to give him a killer run. They're coming back in six days.

"It worked out all right. Todd was in two minds whether to let Nijinsky go or not, but he was one of the ones to beat, so he left him out there."

The open draw for next Wednesday's (November 27) $267,960 final took place after the elimination, and the field will line up as follows:

1-Mirage Hanover
2-Gem Quality
3-Better Is Nice
4-Nijinsky
5-Captain Luke
6-Captain Albano
7-Its Saturday Night
8-Calicojack Hanover
AE1-Nuclear
AE2-Wish You Well