Wind Of The North trotted home for his 50th career victory, winning the third race at Northfield Park on Monday (December 3). The eight year-old harness racing veteran, with 164 career starts, also has 36 seconds and 21 third-place finishes.
Wind Of The North (Cantab Hall-Talk To The Wind-Pine Chip) has career earnings of $1,035,258 with a lifetime mark of 1:51 at Pocono Downs at age four. The trotter's richest win was for a purse of $100,000 in the Chip Noble Trot at Scioto Downs in 2015. Wind Of The North is a well-traveled campaigner — his 50 wins have been spread across 13 different racing surfaces.
Wind Of The North was assigned post-8 in the evening's $19,000 Open Handicap Trot. He fired off the gate despite starting from the far outside and led at every call through fractions of :27.2, :57.4, 1:26.2 and 1:55 over a sloppy surface, besting his competition by a 2¼-lengths. He was the race favorite and returned $3.40 to win.
William Bercury of Slippery Rock, PA owns and trains Wind Of The North. Aaron Merriman was aboard for the winning drive.
Merriman had a big night on Monday winning a total of eight times on the 15-race program.
Ayres Ratliff