Winning Opens is something Cash Me Out (Cash Hall) has pretty much always done. The Kyle Spagnola trainee won the Open Trot nine times in his 2019 Horse of the Year campaign at Saratoga Casino Hotel before adding another three local Opens to his tally in the ’20 season. It only made sense that in the first Open Trot contested this year that Cash Me Out prevailed on Monday afternoon. Phil Fluet piloted the veteran trotter who cruised to victory on opening day of the meet (March 1st) when in a conditional race. In the season’s first installment of the $11,000 Open Trot on the season, Cash Me Out was the public’s 4-5 betting favorite while assigned post six in the six-horse feature. The post didn’t bother the millionaire trotter who marched out to the early lead and just cruised once he got there. When it was all said and done, Cash Me Out stopped the timer in 1:58.1 on a windy afternoon in Saratoga to record his first Open score of the year in what was his 60th lifetime win. The local star is owned by Mike Traylor of Ballston Spa, NY. Longshot Yonkers invader Freddie Mac (Jay Randall) sat the pocket to the winner and finished second to complete a generous $68.00 exacta while Gruden (Billy Dobson) came up third-best to complete a $198.50 triple. The win was one of two on the day for Spagnola whose If Not Why Not (Muscle Mass) also made good as an odds-on favorite on Monday, cruising to a wire-to-wire win in a $6,450 trotting event with driver Brett Crawford at the controls.
Live racing continues on Tuesday afternoon at Saratoga with a first post time set for Noon.
Mike Sardella
Photo: Melissa Simser-Iovino