Best Of Ball dances to Scioto win

Best Of Ball showed her heels to eight other pacing mares in the Friday night feature at Scioto Downs. Trainer-driver Jim Dailey piloted her to a 1:53.4 victory for the Down The Lane Stable.

Dailey rocketed his mare away from the gate to trip the time after a quarter-mile in 27.1, then yielded to Don’t Blame Her and drive Dan Noble. When the tempo slowed in the next half-mile, favored Lavish Liz ranged up to challenge the leaders, but couldn’t reach the leader. That allowed Best Of Ball to come out of the pocket to beat Don’t Blame Her by three-quarters of a length. The 20-1 shot Yndra Hanover rallied to claim the show dough.

It was the first start of the season for Best Of Ball after two May qualifiers. In her career, she has won 16 of 21 starts. She was unbeaten in seven starts as a freshman and then won eight of 13 tries as a 3-year-old. Best Of Ball is a 4-year-old daughter of Presidential Ball and has career earnings of $227,290.

Scioto carded three divisions of the Dream Of Glory Trot on Friday and the winners were Buckeye Man (1:58.1), Surclasser (1:58.3), and Too Good To Pass (1:58.4).