Harness: Fifth And Five grabs Gold Cup And Saucer glory

Fifth And Five followed stablemate Sugar Man from the pocket and kicked past him in the stretch to take the 67th edition of the famed Gold Cup And Saucer for older pacing males on Saturday night at Red Shores Racetrack & Casino in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. The race carried a purse of C$100,000 and the final time of 1:49 4/5 matched the track record.

Starting from the trailing post nine right behind Sugar Man (Doug McNair) in the one-hole, Sugar Man and Fifth And Five (Jody Jamieson) lined up 1-2 quickly and were followed on the inside by Timeisonmyside (Anthony MacDonald) as Jordy N (Jason Ryan) got parked from the two-hole. Sugar Man set fractions of 27 2/5, 55 4/5 and 1:22 2/5, and with Jordy N stuck outside and none of the others in the outer tier able to get around him, it was down to Sugar Man, Fifth And Five and Timeisonmyside to decide it.

Jamieson tipped Fifth And Five out on the final bend while Timeisonmyside waited for the passing lane and Sugar Man was still going along on the front-end. In deep stretch Fifth And Five was able to wear down Sugar Man and got to the wire half a length ahead of Timeisomyside. Sugar Man had to settle for fourth, followed by Ammo (Marc Campbell) and Jordy N.

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"This is just amazing," said an exuberant Jamieson, who grabbed a long-awaited success in the Gold Cup And Saucer. "All week everybody knew where I was going. I was going to follow Sugar Man. I wasn't sure if I had any pace at the seven-eighths. We were flying, and as soon as I moved him over, I was going to give him a run, I knew that, but I didn't know if I would get there. I don't know how much we won by, but I know I won, that's all I know.

"This is absolutely everything. I don't care about the track record. I just care about being in this winner's circle with all these people. This is a dream come true, literally a dream come true."

Mark McKinnon sent out Fifth And Five, a 4-year-old son of Bettor's Delight bred by Darryl Kaplan, Roy Sproxton and Harbhajan Singh Dhillon, for owner Pollack Racing LLC. Fifth And Five has a summary of 11-6-11 from 41 career starts, has earned C$576,633 and paid $8.70 to win.

"That's how we talked about hopefully it was going to go - follow Sugar Man through," remarked McKinnon. "He just had a great week. He got over the ship, and he was just coming in razor-sharp. The trip worked out perfect; the bridle change, everything just worked out. Jody drove him perfectly and here we are.

"Jody's been chasing this thing for a long time, so I'm happy for him and thankful to be part of it myself. It's very emotional and I'm kind of at a loss for words."