Lawless Shadow capture Sun Stakes paces
At 1h54, on August 22, 2021 • By POCONO DOWNS
Lawless Shadow and driver Mark MacDonald used track geometry to perfect advantage on a speed-favoring day, bursting away to set the pace from the rail in the $300,000 Max C. Hempt Memorial on Saturday (Aug. 21) at The Downs at Mohegan Sun Pocono, and then holding off Perfect Sting in 1:48.2.
Lawless Shadow, Perfect Sting (post four), and Hellabalou (post six) all started the race in maximum gear, but as the first turn loomed and Lawless Shadow showed no signs of letting up, Perfect Sting tucked second and Hellabalou third, though still paying a price in the :25.2 red-hot opening quarter. MacDonald was able to back off the son of Shadow Play to a :54 half, then accelerated as Southwind Gendry came up first-over before the 1:21.2 three-quarters.
The race came down to the leader and the pocket sitter, who kept eating into the leader’s advantage, but came up a nose shy as he continued a hard-luck campaign.
Lawless Shadow, the official winner of The Meadowlands Pace, has had better luck, and here he took a new mark while winning for trainer Dr. Ian Moore, co-owner with R G McGroup LTD, hockey great Serge Savard, and Frank Cannon, for whom he now has career earnings of $791,064, $558,625 of that this year.
