{"id":211314,"date":"2026-06-05T06:31:46","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T06:31:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/211314\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T06:31:46","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T06:31:46","slug":"captain-albano-to-get-serious-in-battle-of-lake-erie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/211314\/","title":{"rendered":"Captain Albano to get serious in Battle of Lake Erie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Written by\u00a0Ken Weingartner<\/a> <\/p>\n

After enjoying a lighter workload in the weeks since winning the MGM Borgata Pacing Series championship in early May, Captain Albano (Captaintreacherous) is ready to get back to serious business this weekend.<\/p>\n

\"\"Captain Albano (Mike Lizzi Photo)<\/p>\n

Captain Albano is the 3-1 morning-line favorite in Saturday\u2019s (May 6) $250,000 Battle of Lake Erie at Northfield Park in Ohio. The two-time Dan Patch Award winner will leave from post 3 in a field of nine in the Grade 2 invitational for older pacers, with regular driver Todd McCarthy in the sulky for trainer Noel Daley.<\/p>\n

The 5-year-old son of\u00a0Captaintreacherous-Angelou prepped for the Battle by winning a qualifier in 1:50.2 (last quarter of :26.1) on May 29 at the Meadowlands. He won the $478,000 Borgata final (G2) May 8 on MGM Yonkers Raceway\u2019s half-mile oval, where also posted two victories in the event\u2019s five preliminary rounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cI gave him a little bit of an easy time after the Borgata because he\u2019d raced six weeks in a row there,\u201d Daley said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t let him down completely; he stayed training the whole time, we just eased off. He\u2019s in good spirits and in good shape. If anything, he might have put on a little weight during his time off. Racing six weeks in a row at Yonkers catches up with them a little. I\u2019m happy with where he\u2019s at.\u201d<\/p>\n

Captain Albano, who received Dan Patch divisional honors at ages 2 and 3, has three wins and a third in his six races this season and his $303,000 in earnings lead all male pacers. Last year, the stallion hit the board in 12 of 18 starts, winning seven and banking $597,775 for owners Patricia Stables, L.A. Express Stable, Sjoblom Racing, and Michael Dolan.<\/p>\n

He raced into mid-December last year, capping his campaign with a second-place finish in the $250,000 MGM Grand Prix Pacing Series final at Yonkers after winning three preliminary legs.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe didn\u2019t have too much of a break from last year,\u201d Daley said about Captain Albano, who made his first 2026 start on March 30 in the Borgata. \u201cHe\u2019s good on a half, and (the Borgata) is such a good money race, that we had to have him ready for it.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow I\u2019m just going to pick my spots with him, and we\u2019ll try to work our way through the year. We\u2019ll go to the big dances when they\u2019re there. (The Battle of Lake Erie) is a great race, it\u2019s $250,000, no pay-ups, just an invite. He drew OK; (post) 3 is pretty good. It\u2019s better than anything outside of there. Hopefully, we can just be up close somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

For his career, Captain Albano has won 29 of 51 races, hit the board another 12 times, and earned $2.47 million. He was poised to retire to the breeding shed after his 3-year-old season, but after initial testing and looming deadlines, the connections decided to continue racing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we brought him back at 4, I said if we\u2019re going to do 4, we should do 5,\u201d Daley said. \u201cThen we can retest him and see if he\u2019s good enough to go to stud. But I\u2019m happy to get the two years of racing with him. He\u2019s a great-looking horse and he\u2019s got a good personality to him. He knows he\u2019s a stud, but he\u2019s easy to deal with. And he gets around all size tracks, so that\u2019s a big help.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s just a very cool horse and a pleasure to have around.\u201d<\/p>\n

The $250,000 purse for the 40th Battle of Lake Erie is the highest in its history. Ken Hanover, who won last year\u2019s $200,000 Battle of Lake Erie and captured the $100,000 Joseph Auger Memorial (G3) on May 24 at Harrah\u2019s Philadelphia, is the 7-2 second choice on the morning line in Saturday\u2019s race. He will start from post 6 with Brett Miller driving for trainer Roland \u201cPolie\u201d Mallar.<\/p>\n

The field also includes 2025 Borgata champion Mossdale Ben N, who will leave from post 2 with Jim Marohn Jr. in the sulky for trainer Peter Tritton and is 4-1. Prince Hal Hanover, who already has two graded stakes victories in four starts this season, is 9-2 and will have Matt Kakaley at the lines for Dr. Ian Moore.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a good field,\u201d Daley said. \u201cYou put the money out there, they\u2019re going to come. We\u2019re all very agreeable there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s card also includes the $100,000 Buckeye Distaff, for Ohio-sired pacing mares.<\/p>\n

Racing begins at 6 p.m. (EDT). The Buckeye Distaff is race 10 (estimated post time of 9:18 p.m.) and the Battle of Lake Erie is race 12 (10:02 p.m.). For complete entries,\u00a0click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

by\u00a0Ken Weingartner<\/a>, for the USTA\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Written by\u00a0Ken Weingartner After enjoying a lighter workload in the weeks since winning the MGM Borgata Pacing Series…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211315,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137],"class_list":["post-211314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}