Dover: Captain Pete heads Thursday's DSBF victors

Captain Pete stamped himself as the likely horse to beat in the $110,000 Delaware Standardbred Breeders' Fund (DSBF) championship for 3-year-old male pacers with a sparkling 1:52 2/5 win in the second of three $20,000 second-round preliminary divisions on Thursday (Dec. 12) at Bally's Dover.

Following a 1:57 1/5 front-end score in the first preliminary round, Captain Pete and driver Allan Davis seized control of the terms in their second-round split after securing the pocket and brushing to clear LL Julio (driven by Cody Poliseno) after a 27 2/5 first quarter. The Roddy's Bags Again-Capitana gelding maintained a stout pace through middle splits of 56 1/5 and 1:24 before LL Julio reemerged from the pocket to challenge on the far turn. Captain Pete remained steadfast, repelling LL Julio to win by 1 1/2 lengths and miss his lifetime mark by only a fifth of a second. Boris Badenov (Ross Wolfenden) finished third.

Jason Johnson trains Captain Pete, a 10-time winner with $129,382 in career earnings, for Mulligan Stables, Calcutta Stable and Denise Davis. He paid $2.10 to win.

► Sign up for our FREE DRF Harness Digest Newsletter

Trainer Crissy Crissman-Bier and driver Tim Tetrick swept the other two DSBF divisions. They won the first split with Vincent Ferriero Jr., Robert Lovenbury and Crissman-Bier's Lovenbury, a Badlands Hanover-Major Millie gelding who vaulted three-wide to the lead off a protracted backstretch duel before evading Midnite Mike by two lengths in 1:56 2/5; and the third with P T Stable's Beat Cop ($3.60), a Dragon King-Beat The Beat gelding who sustained a first-over push through the far turn to overpower pace-setter Papas Son and evade runner-up Im Still Here by 2 1/2 lengths for a 1:54 1/5 win.

Captain Pete and Lovenbury, both of whom swept their series preliminaries, will be joined in next Thursday's (Dec. 19) $110,000 final by Midnite Mike, Beat Cop, Im Still Here, LL Julio, Shocking Truth and Boris Badenov.

--press release (DSBF)--