A $23,931 carryover and $75,000 guaranteed pool through the USTA Strategic Wagering Program for the Pick-5 wager at Batavia Downs on Wednesday (November 13) night generated $79,508 new money, producing a $102,701 total pool that yielded the biggest mutuel payout ever in the history of Batavia Downs going all the way back to 1940.
After the prohibitive favorite, Raylan Drew ($3.10) won the first race, the longshots followed fast and furious. La Always Amartini ($15.20), Mason Street ($68.50), Batting Stats ($9.60) and Venue ($22.20) filled out the winning combination of 2-5-4-4-1 that returned $41,412 for a 50-cent wager.
Even after "price" horses won three of the first four races, the savvy punters who wager at Batavia Downs had all but two numbers covered in the fifth race, with a total of two winning tickets being sold.
The feature race on Wednesday came right after the huge payout in the fifth race, where Won Surreal Deal (Drew Monti) won the $11,000 fillies and mares feature and continued the string of premium payouts.
Monti put Won Surreal Deal on the point and led by 1-¼ lengths through splits of :28.3, :58.1 and 1:26.4 while the favored Mcvera (Shawn McDonough) tracked from the pocket. After spinning off the final bend, Won Surreal Deal was not to be caught and pulled away to a 1-½ length margin of victory in 1:54.3 with a snappy :27.4 final panel.
It was the second win in the last three starts and seventh win of the year for Won Surreal Deal ($13.80) who is owned by Parsimonious Racing Stable and trained by Jeff Sorenson.
Live racing resumes at Batavia Downs on Friday (November 15) with post time at 6 p.m.
Free full card past performance programs for every live card of racing at Batavia can always be downloaded at the Downs’ website (bataviadownsgaming.com) under the “Live Racing” tab and all the racing action can be viewed as it happens for free at the Batavia Downs Live Facebook page.
