CHESTER PA – The Harrah’s Philadelphia condition sheet had horses who are “non-winners of 5 races” set to be the feature performers for the Wednesday afternoon program. The trotters gathered a full field, and raced for $14,400; neither the male nor female pace had enough entrants to fill a field, so they were handicapped to the outside posts and raced against “nw3” horses in $12,600 contests.
In the trot, the Muscle Massive mare Spree took advantage of an opportunistic drive by Todd McCarthy while reducing her mark to 1:56.2. Coming around the final turn three-wide and looking like she might have to tip four-deep – not a usual route to victory at Philly – Spree and McCarthy got a literal break as pocketsitter Red Redemption went offstride, allowing the pair to duck down to the inside to edge Vinny De Vie by a neck. A 28-1 proposition, Spree triumphed for trainer Trish Adams and owner Dante Scattolini.
On the distaff side, Capsaicinn, the race favorite, quickly gained control for driver Marcus Miller, then lowered her mark a tick to 1:52.4, staying ahead of pocketsitter Briar by 2¾ lengths. John Butenschoen conditions the Captaintreacherous sophomore for Emerald Highland Farm.
Thursday’s card at Philly is headed by a $15,300 “nw 8 races” trot, with Big Nudge started at 8-5 on the morning line from the rail. Program pages for the 12:25 first race post card are available at https://www.phha.org/harrahspps.html.