19-1 longshot kicks off H3R card Friday

Badlands Bay (Badlands Hanover) kicked off the Hippodrome 3R harness racing program Friday (Sept. 8) with a bang as the 19-1 longshot was able to upset the field in the very first race pace.

Driven superbly by Maxime Dinelle, Badlands Bay got away in fourth place at the start of the race as Twizzler GT (Pascal Berube) shot to the early lead from post three and opened up by five lengths at the opening quarter mile in :27.1.

Stuck first-over from the start was Velocity Impetuous (Marie-Claude Auger) who came after Twizzler GT and was second on the outside at the half mile in :58.2.

Then in the backstretch, Dinelle moved Badlands Bay second-over, following Velocity Impetuous, who had not yet given up despite being parked out the entire mile. They passed the three-quarters in 1:28.4.

As the field came off the final turn, they had fanned out four-wide and it was Badlands Bay and Maxime Dinelle the strongest of all, coming on to win by one and three-quarter lengths in 2:00.4 over GA Speed Matrix (Alain Carrier) second and Peppa Pam (David Pilon) third.

Trained and owned by Germain Chabot of Saint-Nazaire-d’Acton, it was the second win this year for the three-year-old gelding who paid $40.00 to win.

Track Notes: Both Samuel Fillion and Robert Shepherd had driving doubles on Friday. Live racing resumes at H3R on Sunday, Sept. 10 which is Super Sunday at the track with all eight Quebec Championship Finals taking place for two and three-year-old trotters and pacers. It’s a 12-race card starting at noon with more than $500,000 in purses. Super Sunday has drawn back to H3R, two top drivers in Louis-Philippe Roy and Daniel Dube. There will also be three $10,000 Invitational events. Post time on Sunday is 12:00 noon.