Jul 25, 2024 By John Sacco 4 min read

A week ago, Captain Albano had his way with the field in the second elimination of the Adios Pace and cruised to victory and the favorite’s role this week.

Expect much more of a challenge from the remainder of the nine-horse field for the $350,000 58th Delvin Miller Adios Pace Saturday at The Meadows.

Post time is 11:45 a.m. The Adios will be the 15th race on the 16-race card.

“They kind of let (Captain Albano) do what he wanted last week,” said Nick Catalano, a local owner who holds about a 25 percent stake in Sweet Beach Life. “Our horse is kind of high strung. We’re hoping someone will push him. There are some horses in the race with speed.

“It’s always fun watching our horse. We had high hopes for him as a 2-year-old and we’ve never lost hope for him.”

Sweet Beach Life (Matt Kakaley, Travis Alexander) is 10-1 and will leave from post 7. The horse won the Messenger Pace last month.

Captain Albano’s connections (Todd McCarthy, Noel Daley) picked post 4 while Wish You Well’s connections (David Miller, Nifty Norman) picked the two-hole. The two elimination-race winners have the privilege to select their posts in the final.

Captain Albano is 2-1 while Wish You Well is 3-1.

Hall-of-Fame trainer Ron Burke sends two 3-year-old pacers to the posts, including long shots Noblesville (12-1), who will be driven by Ronnie Wrenn, Jr. and Outer Banks (20-1) with Tim Tetrick in the bike.

Other top contenders are speedy Clever Cody at 4-1 with Aaron Merriman in the bike from post 5 and Huntingforchrome (6-1), who will be driven by James MacDonald from post nine.

Expect both horses to leave and go for the top off the gate.

Two other longshots — Timeisonmyside (Anthony MacDonald, Tim Twaddle) at 12-1 and 20-1 Nuclear (Dexter Dunn, Sharon Andrews) — are interesting. Dunn at 20-1 is rare and Timeisonmyside, who was second in his elimination race, has the home track advantage.

“I think we have to go after (Captain Albano),” Twaddle said. “It’s a horse race. Things happen.”

Two years ago, Twaddle had Fourever Boy in The Adios. He is happy to be in it again.

“It sure is nice,” he added. “It’s always nice to be involved in a big race. It feels great. This is great for our staff to be involved in the race in front of our fans and people. We all get to share in the excitement.”

Down the stretch

The $104,225 Quinton Patterson Adio Volo for 3-year-old filly pacers on Adios Day drew a strong nine-horse field that includes Geocentric in post two and My Girl EJ in post seven. My Girl EJ upended Geocentric in last year’s Breeders Crown. My Girl EJ is trained by Burke.

The power-packed field of nine will square off in race 10, and the numbers are intriguing. Seven of the nine entrants have lifetime marks under 1:51, including three with sub-1:50 records. Three have earned more than $250,000 each. The field has 58 wins in 167 starts, a 34.7 percent win percentage. In those 167 starts, the group has, combined, finished in the top-3 118 times (76 percent of the time).

The race honors the memory of Patterson, a longtime Meadows behind-the-scenes employee, who placed the blanket onto the Adios winner in the winner’s circle.

Several local horses and connections will be in the Hambletonian eliminations Saturday night at the Meadowlands. Burke trained and owned TCI has the first elimination to himself. TCI is one of the favorites. The other three top contenders are in the second elimination that includes Karl, Highland Kismet and Situationship.

Burke has three entered in the Hambletonian Oaks as well.