Fox Valley Tribal scores

Fox Valley Tribal used his great gate speed to grab the early lead from post eight, then sat behind Thisbigdogwilfight from mid-backstretch until the home stretch, where he shook loose and scored a stakes record 1:49 victory over Thisbigdogwilfight by one-half length in the $50,000 final of the Illinois State Fair Colt Stakes at Springfield Wednesday evening. World champion My Boy David was third.

Tim Tetrick was in the bike as the 3-year-old Sportsmaster gelding scored his fifth victory of the year in 14 starts for trainer Robert Sanders and owners Rob Rittof, Gail Sanders and Mark DeVience. Earlier this year Fox Valley Tribal finished third in the North America Cup at Woodbine.

One race earlier on the 14-race card that finished in the twilight of day, Litigator captured the $50,000 Colt stakes final for 3-year-old colt and gelding trotters in 1:56.2. The favored Valley Victor gelding took the lead at the half and turned back a host of challengers before stretching his lead to 1 1/2
lengths at the wire over Crown Vic and Dave Magee. Valley Sport and Tetrick were third.

Roger Welch has trained Philip Rietveld’s homebred to nine victories in 12 starts and earnings that went over the $100,000 mark this year and reached $170,911 in two years of racing.

Earlier on the program Escapefromalcataz, a 2-year-old gelded son of Sportsmaster tied the national season’s record with a 1:51.4 mile in a Colt Stakes consolation.

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