Another win in strong five-year-old year

Circuit Party (Donato Hanover) is in the midst of a harness racing career year and on Friday night, the five-year-old extended his win streak to five by prevailing in the Open Trot.

Wally Hennessey drove for trainer Dan Cappello Jr. as Circuit Party drew post eight for Friday’s try against the track’s top trotters. Hennessey was aggressive pulling him second-over approaching the opening quarter and raced almost the entire mile on the outside.

Coming in on a four-race win streak and as a winner of the Open for the first-time last week (Aug 18), Circuit Party put the swoop to the group in the $18,200 feature getting the better of rival Duckdodgendive (Brett Beckwith) in the stretch.

In victory, Circuit Party became just the third high stepper to win the Open in back-to-back tries in 2023. Duckdodgendive, who won his first career Open last month, was a strong second on Friday while Special Prosecutor (Jimmy Devaux) earned the show spot to hit the board for the third consecutive start in the local Open.

CIRCUIT PARTY REPLAY

Circuit Party paid $8.30 to win in a race that was evenly bet. The exacta and triple in the feature returned $42 and $170, respectively. The win for Circuit Party was his tenth of the season in twenty-three starts. With the earnings from his Friday score, the rising trotting star boosted his career earnings to over the $100,000 mark for owner Lisa Unltd LLC of Schenectady, NY who recently acquired the up-and-coming trotter.

Live racing continues on Saturday evening at Saratoga with a first post time set for 6:45pm.

For complete race results, click here: US Trotting results.

by Mike Sardella, for Saratoga Raceway