For the second consecutive Friday night at Saratoga Casino Hotel, the evening belonged to the tandem of driver Luke Hanners and trainer Jaymes McAssey. Just a week removed from an evening which saw Hanners pilot four winners, three for McAssey, the pair pulled off a near carbon copy to last Friday’s performance. McAssey scored another training hat trick on the Friday card with his trainees accounting for three of four winners on the card for the up-and-coming Hanners.
Luke Hanners, who is in his first full season in the sulky at the Spa, currently sits third among local reinsmen on the season while McAssey is also third among Saratoga conditioners in 2022. With no Open on the docket Friday evening, a pair of $11,000 races for trotters served as co-features and it was McAssey and Hanners teaming up for a front-running score in one of them as young filly Just Liv Broadway (E L Titan) went coast-to-coast to record her first victory in what was her fifth local try.
Sophomore filly Dingle recorded her second win in as many local starts when she romped for McAssey and Hanners making good at odds of 1-5 to set a new lifetime mark of 1:58.1. The red-hot pairing’s third Friday score came in one of the pacing events on the card when JK’s Dobbins (JK Endofanera) went wire-to-wire to pull off a mild upset at odds of 5-1. Hanners’ other winner on the program came while piloting the Joel Flanders-trained Takoda Blue Chip who broke his maiden in his Saratoga debut on Friday.
Live racing continues on Saturday evening with a first post time of 5pm.
Mike Sardella
Photo: Cheyanne Mandy
