Nothing dull about finale

Fear the Dragon wins by a half-length

Fear the Dragon trainer Brian Brown was a bit concerned with his horse in the week prior to the 51st running of the Delvin Miller Adios Pace for the Orchids at The Meadows Racetrack & Casino.

“He was very dull and we found out when we went home and pulled his blood that he was dehydrated, which makes a horse dull,” Brown said. “So we worked onit.”

Fear the Dragon was anythingbut dull in the race.

Trailing by as many as six lengths at the halfway point in the race, Fear the Dragon dueled with co-favorite Huntsville all the way down the stretch until he pulled away in the final quartermile to win the mile-long race by a half a length and a $200,000 share of the $400,000 purse in 1:49.1.

With the win, Fear the Dragon increased his career earningsto $1,152,844.

“About halfway through the stretch I felt confident,” Fear the Dragon sulky driver David Miller said. “Coming off the last turn I felt beat, but he’s pretty tough, he’s pretty game and he flipped his head andwent.”

Fear the Dragon and Huntsville, which was driven by Tim Tetrick and trained by Ray Schnittker, came into the race ranked No. 1 and No. 2 in the country among 3-yearolds. It was the third time that Fear the Dragon defeated Huntsville this season, with the previous two coming in the Down by the sea side in the North America Cup and in a division of the Pennsylvania SireStakes.

This one, though, was Huntsville’sto win.

Brett Miller, the 2016 Adios winner with Racing Hill, jumped to an early lead on Eddard Hanover, which was trained by Fredericktown’s Ron Burke. Eddard Hanover led for nearly the entire first half-mile before he was caught and passed by Huntsville, who clocked in at 53.3 seconds.

Eddard Hanover stayed in it until the last quarter when hefell off and finished eighth.

In the meantime, Fear the Dragon was making his run. He snuck past RJP and Western Hill on the outside and made it a two-horse race comingdown the stretch.

“It turned into a great race and I felt worried that we didn’t get away any better than we did and we were awfulfar back,” Brown said. “Actually, at the head of the stretch, I thought Huntsville wasputting us away and then, when we hit the stretch, Dragon caught in and he came back and he’s just one of them horses that never gives up.”

Neither does his driver. The win was David Miller’s third Adios victory in his career, the best -among active drivers and tied for second alltime behind John Campbell, whowon eight from 1987-2003.

Miller also won with Shadow Play in 2008 and McWicked in 2014. His winning time with McWicked wasalso 1:49.1.

And he needed all that experience to goad Fear the Dragondown the stretch.