Bettors Up persevered in a dramatic photo finish with Agent Q ahead of the favoured elimination winners to win the $440,000 Fan Hanover Stakes for three-year-old pacing fillies in upset fashion for her local connections.
Doug McNair made the winning move with the Bettors Delight-Fresh Idea filly mid-race, sweeping from third to first and then held off Agent Q by the slimmest of margins in a career-best 1:49.4 score. Scott McEneny trains Bettors Up for his wife Michelle and co-owners Bradley Grant and Teresa Davidson, both of Milton, Ont.
"I watched the replay a few times and I thought she held on. It was close," said McEneny of the photo finish.
Agent Q (David Miller) got the first call firing off the gate from post seven, but she stalled briefly and post two starter Al Mar Got A Fever (Trevor Henry) shot through inside to grab the lead with insider Bettors Up hot on her heels. Agent Q remained parked out, but drove on past the :26.4 quarter mark to take over command.
Down the backstretch, McNair made his move with Bettors Up and hit the half in :55.1. They began to open up on top by a pair of lengths on the way to three-quarters in 1:22.1 while Al Mar Got A Fever tipped out with favourites Idyllic Beach (Yannick Gingras) and Tequila Monday (Brian Sears) following in the outer flow around the final turn.
Bettors Up continued to show the way into the stretch, but Agent Q emerged from the pocket to make it a thrilling finish. Tequila Monday rallied home for third ahead Idyllic Beach, who was rough-gaited in the stretch.
"There wasn't a lot of leavers and I actually tried to get away in the two-hole behind Dave and it didn't work out," said McNair of his racing strategy. "But it worked out the right way for us. I had to remove her back to the lead and she did the rest.
"We were rolling right along. We went 27 seconds in the third quarter and I think we paced home in :27.3 so they [the favourites] had to come a pretty big back half to catch us. It wasn't like I didn't see them."
Bettors Up, who was a runner-up in her elimination last week to Tequila Monday, returned $24.40 to win at odds of 11-1.
"I was very confident," said McEneny of his filly heading into the race. "She had a good week, she drew well and she raced really tough last week so I was very happy with her race last week and things worked out tonight."
Bettors Up picked up her second win of the season from five starts after going six-for-11 at age two. Her career earnings soared over $456,000.
She is expected to head to the James Lynch Memorial next at The Downs at Mohegan Sun Pocono.
Roses Are Red - Lady Shadow
Lady Shadow faced her stiffest test to date in the 2017 edition of the $365,000 Roses Are Red Stakes, but the champion mare handled the challenge like a true champion does: by fighting off all her foes to emerge victorious.
Driver Yannick Gingras had Lady Shadow forwardly placed from Post 4 while Wrangler Magic (Louis-Philippe Roy) and Call Me Queen Be (Scott Zeron) left strongest off the gate. Call Me Queen Be won that tussle with a brisk :25.3 opener with Wrangler Magic in the pocket followed by elim winners Nike Franco N (Tim Tetrick) and Lady Shadow.
Tetrick right-lined his mare from third to move to the front, and cleared before the :54 half. Nike Franco had to face immediate pressure from Lady Shadow, first up and advancing confidently. The third station was reached in 1:21.3 with Lady Shadow edging to a narrow lead that started to widen as the field hit the stretch. Wrangler Magic was on that mare's back coming for home and tipped out for the stretch drive but couldn't track her down as Lady Shadow hit the line in 1:48.4 for her third straight Roses Are Red title.
Lady Shadow, a six-year-old daughter of Shadow Play-Lady Camella, has won 32 of 59 career races and earned more than $2.1 million. She is owned by David Kryway, Carl Atley, Ed Gold, and BFJ Stable, and trained by Ron Adams.
Preferred - Rockin In Heaven
Driven by Sylvain Filion, Rockin In Heaven took the lead into the first turn in the first $34,000 division and carved out panels of :26.2, :55.2 and 1:22.1 before holding off the late-surging Dinner At The Met (Travis Cullen) to take a new lifetime mark of 1:49.4, with the first-up American Virgin (Doug McNair) finishing third in between the top two.
Local horseman Dr. Ian Moore trains and co-owns the Rock N Roll Heaven-Tropics Beachgirl five-year-old with Douglas Polley of Amherst, N.S., Francois Lecomte of St-Hyacinthe, Que., and Gordon McComb of Fall River, N.S.