Monticello: No surprises in Monday's New York Sire Stakes

Howlenthehills and Boston Rocks, a pair of 1-9 shots, were expected to come away with wins in the pair of New York Sire Stakes divisions for 3-year-old male pacers on Monday afternoon at Monticello Raceway, and they did not disappoint.

Starting from post one in the first $57,000 split, Howlenthehills went right to the point with driver Matt Kakaley and led his four foes through fractions of 28, 57 1/5 and 1:25. Howlenthehills began to get away from the others before three-quarters and continued to open up in a 27 1/5 final kicker, defeating pocket-sitter Texas Holdem (Mark MacDonald) by six lengths in a 1:52 1/5 mile. Ameritric (Scott Zeron) came in third following a two-wide move from the fourth spot past the half.

An American Ideal gelding bred by Crawford Farms, Howlenthehills is trained by Travis Alexander for owner Symmetry Stables LLC. This was his seventh victory from 16 career starts, he has now earned $276,731 and he paid $2.10 to win.

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The other $58,100 split went in similar fashion as Boston Rocks (Jason Bartlett) took command from post four with little dispute and was on top at the 28 1/5 quarter, 56 4/5 half and 1:24 2/5 three-quarters. Up by 3 1/4 lengths with a quarter of a mile to go, Boston Rocks paced home in 28 1/5 to widen his margin to nine lengths over Vandiemen Bluechip (Braxten Boyd), who had the two-hole trip, and halt the timer in 1:52 3/5. Taranaki (Mike Merton) couldn't make any headway from first-over and wound up third.

Boston Rocks is a Boston Red Rocks colt owned by breeders Peter Blood and Rick Berks. The Mike Deters trainee has a summary of 8-8-2 from 21 trips behind the gate, has put away $464,517 and returned $2.10 to win.