Harrah's Hoosier Park: Winner's Bet romps in Caesars Trotting Classic

Winner's Bet backed up his victory in the Charlie Hill Memorial at Scioto on September 7 with a resounding 1:50 3/5 success in the $200,000 Caesars Trotting Classic for free-for-allers on Friday night at Harrah's Hoosier Park.

After having to go a big trip from first-over to get the job done in the Charlie Hill, Winner's Bet (Dexter Dunn) had a much less arduous journey in the Caesars Trotting Classic. He made his way up on the outside to wrestle the lead away from Ponda Jet (Kyle Wilfong) after the 27 second opening quarter and proceeded unchallenged to the half in 55 1/5.

On the final turn, Dunn let Winner's Bet trot, and he opened up a big gap on Ponda Jet and a first-over Oh Well (Todd McCarthy) through three-quarters in 1:23 1/5. There was no reaching Winner's Bet from there as he was victorious by 2 3/4 lengths. Oh Well was game without cover and held second over Maple Leaf Trot champion and fellow Marcus Melander trainee Periculum (Scott Zeron). It's Academic (David Miller) and Chapercraz, Ron Burke's two entrants, were fourth and fifth.

"He's in great form at the moment. He's pretty versatile. He can leave the gate not bad and I slipped across," Dunn said. "We went pretty easy down the back, but he felt fantastic. He finished off very strongly.

"He does his work pretty easy. I sort of felt Kyle sort of dropping off me a little bit, so I took a shot and got away from them."

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Nancy Takter trains Winner's Bet, a 4-year-old horse by Walner, for owners Lindy Farms and Robert Rudolph. The S R F Stable-bred won for the 12th time and went just over the $1 million mark in career earnings as he has now put away $1,000,328. He returned $4.20 to win.

"This was definitely more of an easy trip for him where he got to control the pace on his own. He's been so good really all year, right through the Graduate and everything," stated Takter. "We had a little bad luck in the Hambletonian Maturity with the draw and he ran behind the gate in the Maple Leaf, so it was just little unfortunate situations. He's bounced back to show the really nice horse that he really is.

"I actually have to think about (his schedule) a little bit, probably the Breeders Crown. Maybe he'll have a qualifier or something before then, but most likely the Breeders Crown is his next stop."