Marnie Hall wins Strada

Marnie Hall ($4.00, $3.00, $2.40) fought off Miss Galvinator ($8.20, $5.20) in the final strides to win the $75,000 Thomas Strada Memorial on Saturday night at the Meadowlands.

Fast early fractions set up an ideal cover flow for Marnie Hall and driver Dan Dube.  Burning Point pressed the early pace as she cleared the lead from Up Front Dragonfly in a :26.3 opening quarter and took the field through a :54 half.  Nannywithafanny launched a first-over attack, towing Marnie Hall and Miss Galvinator with her.  Marnie Hall tipped three-wide on the final turn and held off Miss Galvinator by a head in 1:50.3.  Double Dream ($3.40) closed along the pylons to finish third.

\"It was tough to drive her a little bit but when the other one was coming, she came back on again,\" Dube said. \" She had to be chased to the end.\"

Marnie Hall is now a perfect two-for-two on the season.  She was an impressive 1:51.3 winner in her 2007 debut, a Classic Distaff leg on April 9 at Dover.  Trained by Mark Silva, Marnie Hall has won 15 of 46 career starts for earnings of $912,510.  She is owned by Daniel Plouffe and Jean Dessureault of Quebec.

The evening marked the third running of the memorial race created by the family and friends of Thomas Strada, an avid harness racing fan who was killed in the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center where he worked as a vice president on the corporate bond desk at Cantor Fitzgerald.

An outdoorsman, Strada, 41, shared his love of harness racing with his wife, Terry, whose father was a Hall of Fame horseman, the late George Sholty.   Strada, along with his brothers, Michael and Joseph, and sisters, Jennifer and Susan, grew up in the shadow of the former Roosevelt Raceway in Westbury, New York, where their father has been mayor since 1981. (Meadowlands)