Three-year-old Digger dominates Jennings

The 3-year-old Digger had no trouble handling older horses in the $60,000 Jennings Handicap at Laurel Park, pulling away to a two-length victory as the heavy favorite under Horacio Karamanos.

In the early stages of the 1 1/8-mile race, Digger and Karamanos played cat and mouse with Forty Crowns and Mario Pino. Digger broke fastest from the outside post and cleared the field of seven, then took back and let Forty Crowns have the lead, tracking him through reasonable fractions of 25.32 seconds, 49.26, and 1:13.86 for six furlongs. Digger angled out to challenge Forty Crowns, a 4-year-old by Maryland sire Not for Love, coming into the final turn and entered the stretch with the lead, powering to the wire in 1:51.49 on a fast main track.

"I had a lot of horse today," said Karamanos, who has ridden Digger to three stakes wins at the fall meeting. "This was definitely his most impressive performance of the meet."

Forty Crowns weakened to be third, a half-length behind the late-running Evil Storm.

Digger ($3.40) has never failed to hit the board in nine career starts at Laurel. He is owned by Lawrence Roman and trained by Rick Dutrow Jr. at his Aqueduct home base.