Beautiful Lady sneaks in late for Plainridge win

Plainville, MA—After a two-week sabbatical, Beautiful Lady returned to the track and tripped-out to win in the featured $14,000 conditioned event for harness racing fillies and mares at Plainridge Park on Friday afternoon (Aug. 4).

Beautiful Lady (Greg Merton) left for position and tucked in second behind the front-running Iheartquestionmark (Steve Nason) at the quarter in :26.2. Positions remained unchanged until the half when Hilaria (Nick Graffam) pulled first-over and started to advance. Hilaria drew alongside Iheartquestionmark and the two matched strides to the three-quarters in 1:24 while Beautiful Lady lay in wait third behind them.

The head-end duel continued around the far turn and to the top of the stretch when Beautiful Lady found a sliver of room along the pylons and shot the gap. Merton rocked and rocked and pushed her through and then Beautiful Lady did the rest, pacing away to a one-length victory in 1:53.

It was the third win of the year for Beautiful Lady ($4.80) and it pushed her seasonal earnings to $32,467 for owners Lester Gelardi Jr. and Anthony Passafaro. The 6-year-old daughter of Rocknroll Hanover is trained by Monique Cohen.

Steve Nason had a banner afternoon at The Ridge driving three winners and training two of them as well. The tracks leading driver Greg Merton also had a driving double on the afternoon.

Live racing resumes at Plainridge Park on Monday afternoon with the first post set at 4 p.m.

By Tim Bojarski, for the Standardbred Owners of Massachusetts