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Under brilliant Yannick Gingras handling, Caviart Belle (Captaintreacherous) scored a mild harness racing upset in the $376,000 Three Diamonds Final for two-year-old pacing fillies at The Meadowlands on Saturday evening (November 29th).
Caviart Belle was coming off a strong winning effort in the Kindergarten Final where she closed from far back, but Gingras made an early move to the front just past the :27.1 opening in this race, beating 1 to 9 favorite My Girl E J (Dexter Dunn) to the punch. From there, she led through a :55.4 half at which point My Girl EJ was flushed first up as the backfield began to roll.
Gingras turned up the speed with a :27.1 third fraction and Caviart Belle cruised past the three quarters in 1:23.0 with My Girl E J still having a length to make up and Miraculous Deo (Todd McCarthy) looking live following cover.
Both My Girl E J and Miraculous Deo gained on the leader down the lane, but their efforts were in vain. Caviart Belle paced a :27.3 final quarter to hold on by a neck over My Girl E J. Miraculous Deo was another nose back in third and Sarasota Hanover (Scott Zeron) closed for fourth.
CAVIART BELLE REPLAY
Gingras indicated that he didn’t want to be on the lead, but that was how the race played out. As it turned out, that trip played to his advantage with My Girl E J being forced to race first up a long was as the pace accelerated.
“Last place I really wanted to be was on the front,” he said. “She can get it done on the front because she’s a good filly, but I don’t think it’s her best game. If she can have live cover like in the Kindergarten final, she can just smoke for a quarter, she’s just so fast. It was just the way it worked out.”
Owned by Caviart Farms of Virginia and trained by Nancy Takter, Caviart Belle won for the seventh time in 13 starts and boosted her earnings to more than $468,000. She paid $9.60 to win as the second choice.
For complete race results, click here: US Trotting results.
by Garnet Barnsdale, for Harnesslink
