Meadowlands: Highest grades for It's Academic in Crawford Farms Open Trot

It's Academic had to do the first-over work but was still much-the-best in Saturday night's $155,140 Crawford Farms Open Trot at the Meadowlands, winning in a stakes record 1:50 2/5 performance.

Rattle My Cage (Tim Tetrick) was in front of his nine rivals at the 27 second opening quarter, but Venerate (Brian Sears), the favorite in the race, floated away from post four and then came with a two-wide attack that carried him into the lead past that marker. Venerate would then put the half on the board in 55 1/5 before David Miller swung first-over out of fourth with It's Academic, giving cover to Asteroid (Dexter Dunn).

Venerate continued to show the way at the 1:23 4/5 three-quarters and spun for home first, but It's Academic had moved into a joint second on the final bend and continued to push forward in the lane, eventually going by Venerate inside the final eighth. From there, It's Academic pulled away to the finish, prevailing by 2 1/4 lengths over Venerate. Rattle My Cage, Asteroid and Balenciaga (Scott Zeron) rounded out the top five.

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"He's really easy to get along with. He's been a very handy horse, very easy. He waits on me to ask him to go," said Miller. "Right off the gate I was trying to get around Scotty [Zeron with Ambassador Hanover], but I saw he was pressing kind of hard, so I decided to take a tuck. I was just getting ready to make that move that Brian did. He beat me to it, but my horse just raced his heart out, and I can't be happier with him. Right there at the head of the lane Brian asked his horse and I still had mine grabbed up. I felt pretty confident at that point. I hadn't popped the plugs yet and he's real sharp right now.

"Hopefully nothing goes wrong with him, and I think he'll be right there about every start."

Ron Burke trains It's Academic, a 6-year-old stallion by Uncle Peter, for owner Brad Grant. It's Academic made his 26th trip to the winner's circle, sent his earnings to $1,525,284 and paid $8.40 to win as a 3-1 offering.