Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs Week in Review

Apr 6, 2013 | Racing

March 30-April 5, 2013
There were only three nights of racing this past week at Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs, since there was no live card on Easter Sunday. Luckily, those three nights were jam-packed with stellar performances, giving us no shortage of candidates for the Weekly Awards. Let’s take a look at the best of the best in the week that was at MSPD.
PACER OF THE WEEK: RIVER SHARK
With the Breeders Crown scheduled at Pocono, we anticipated that we’d be seeing some of the finest pacers and trotters in the country getting the lay of the land at the track throughout the season. Apparently, the talent parade has already begun, as 7-year-old pacer River Shark proved with his outstanding effort on Saturday night.
The gelding from the Mark Ford barn came into Saturday night’s $18,000 condition pace with 33 wins under his belt and over $1 million in his bank account. Coming off tough races at the Meadowlands and Yonkers, River Shark was made the odds-on favorite with George Napolitano Jr. in the bike, but the other competitors in the tough field weren’t about to cede an easy win to him. Several horses took shots at him on the front end only to get rebuffed with extreme prejudice.
He faced his toughest challenge in the stretch, as pocket horse Take It Back Terry shot up the passing lane after an excellent trip to that point. River Shark dug deep for one more burst of speed and came up a winner in 1:51. Expect to see more of that from this excellent pacer, and expect to see a lot more star performances at Pocono throughout the season.
Other top pacers this week include: Move On (Jim Morrill Jr., Dennis Walsh), who doubled his claiming price on Saturday night to score his second consecutive win, this time beating the $10,000 claimers in a career-best 1:52:1; Shebestingin (Jim Morrill Jr., Joe Holloway), whose victory in 1:52:3 in the Bobby Weiss Series for 3-year-old fillies on Tuesday kept her unbeaten after four career starts; and Happy Hour Honey (Jim Morrill Jr., Kent Sherman), a mare who scored her second straight victory over the $10,000 claimers on Wednesday night in 1:54:1.
TROTTER OF THE WEEK: IMPERIAL COUNT
There are times in the sport of harness racing when a horse is just so bound and determined to come up with the win that no manner of obstacle can derail it from that victory. When you add in excellent talent, you’ve got a winning combination, one that Imperial Count possessed in the week’s featured preferred trot, which carried a purse of $25,000, on Saturday night.
Imperial Count, a five-year-old stallion from the barn of Nifty Norman, got away a bit slow in the race, which was just his second start of the season. Driver Tyler Buter set him in motion on the back stretch behind two other horses, but problems arose when the horse that was first in line on the outside went off-stride.
Buter had no other choice but to send Imperial Count out wide around the final turn to avoid the breaking horse, but still the gelding found enough momentum to track down pacesetting Photo King by a half-length for the win in 1:54:2. Like we said, combine effort with talent and it’s often too tough to stop.
Honorable mention on the trotting side goes to: Pembroke Heat Wave (George Napolitano Jr., Mark Ford), who shipped in from Harrah’s for a victory in a condition trot on Tuesday night in 1:55:4; Berkshire (Jim Morrill Jr., Antonella Galie), who scored his first win of the season on Tuesday over a rugged condition group in a career-best 1:55:3; and Maximum Credit (George Napolitano Jr., Paul Kennedy), who won his third straight race overall and his second in a row in the Bobby Weiss Series for 3-year-old trotting colts and geldings, scoring on Wednesday night in 1:58:1.
LONG SHOT OF THE WEEK: ONE LINE GUY
This first-time starter was facing a field of more experienced trotters in his debut on Tuesday night, but he scored with Andrew McCarthy at 18-1 for a $38 payoff on a $2 bet.
DRIVER OF THE WEEK: JIM MORRILL JR.
Morrill is off to a blistering start in the early part of the Pocono meet, and the highlight came on Wednesday night when he ripped off five consecutive wins on the card.
TRAINER OF THE WEEK: MARK FORD
Ford is one of the early leaders in the trainers’ standings, and he had another solid week, including a training double on Tuesday night with wins in consecutive races on the program.
That will do it for this week, but we’ll see you at the track. Feel free to e-mail me at [email protected]

Sophomore Trotters on Display in Weiss Series at Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs

Mar 29, 2013 | Racing

March 27, 2013
Daggett, Jurgen Hanover, and Maximum Credit scored wins in the first leg of the Bobby Weiss Series for 3-year-old colts and geldings on the trot on Wednesday night at Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs. The races each carried a purse of $15,000.
Daggett (Chocolatier-Elena Victory), with Marcus Miller in the bike for John Butenschoen, parlayed a pocket trip into a victory in the first split, scoring in 1:58:2. In the second division, Jurgen Hanover (Credit Winner-Yassi Hanover) romped to win in 1:56:1, the fastest of the times in the first leg of the series. David Miller did the driving for trainer Donna Marshall. The final split was captured by Maximum Credit (Credit Winner-Marjorie Hall), as George Napolitano Jr. drove him to a frontrunning win for trainer Paul Kennedy in 1:58:2.

Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs

Nov 17, 2012 | Racing

2012 Season Review
Well, racing fans, we’ve come to that point in the year where we wrap things up at Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs. The season closes out on Wednesday night, November 21 with the 140th racing night of the campaign. After that, MSPD racing goes on hiatus until March of 2013.
Since we are so near the end, it’s time to put on a bow on this season by looking back at some of the memorable performances that Pocono racing fans have witnessed over the past 7 ½ months. We talked about the horses of the year a week ago in this column. Let’s take a little time now to honor the top drivers and trainers from this outstanding season just about gone by.
On the driving side, it was another stellar season for George Napolitano Jr. who rocketed back to the top of the standings in driving wins. George also was in a battle for the UDRS title, a percentage akin to a baseball batting average measuring driving efficiency, with Jim Morrill Jr., and that race might even come down to the final night.
George Nap was not the only driver to have success this season however, as our balanced racing community at Pocono produced eight men with over 100 wins in the meet. Those eight drivers were mixed evenly between veterans like Napolitano, Morrill, Mike Simons, and Joe Pavia Jr. and younger pilots who have already established themselves as forces like Matt Kakaley, Tyler Buter, Andrew McCarthy, and Eric Carlson. Carlson accomplished the feat in his first ever year at MSPD.
On the training side, Chris Oakes once again dominated the proceedings. He held a huge advantage in training UDRS all season long, and he pulled away from Ron Burke for the training wins crown in the season’s final weeks. In addition to Oakes and Burke, there have been a number of trainers celebrating excellent seasons in 2012. The other trainers rounding out the Top 10 in victories in 2012: Kent Sherman, Erv Miller, Amber Buter, Jason Robinson, Rene Allard, Paul Holzman, Brewer Adams, and Mark Ford.
2012 also was a great year for track records, proving once again that the competition keeps getting better and faster at Pocono. Out of 24 categories which separate horses by age, gait, and gender, 13 records were set in 2012. In other words, more than half of the existing records fell by the wayside.
Our two most prestigious records, fastest pace and fastest trot for all ages and genders, came under assault in 2012, not surprisingly in the two biggest stakes races held all season at Pocono. Betterthancheddar captured the Ben Franklin pace in 1:48, matching the all-time pacing mark set a season ago by We Will See. On that same June day in the Earl Beal Memorial trot, Googoo Gaagaa put together a ridiculous performance for a victory in 1:50:4, the fastest mile ever trotted, not just at Pocono, but on any 5/8-mile oval.
In addition to those two amazing records, Economy Terror managed a feat that will be hard to match. After setting the track mark for two-year-old placing fillies at the Pennsylvania Championships in 2011, she came back as a 3-year-old and defended her state title, once again breaking a track record in the process. That makes Economy Terror, the pride of the Oakes’ barn, the only horse to have two records on the Pocono ledger.
Those were just a few examples of what has been another tremendous season of racing at MSPD. Even as we come to one meet’s completion, it’s hard not to look forward to what’s ahead in 2013. That’s because the Breeders Crown, harness racing’s year-end championship races, will once again be hosted by Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs.
We hosted the Breeders Crown for the first time back in 2010, and it was such a ringing success that we all hoped that it wouldn’t be too long before it returned. We are honored to be the location for the best of the best in harness racing, who will duke it out for bragging rights and hundreds of thousands of dollars in purse money.
In the meantime, it’s time to put the 2012 season to bed. It has once again been an honor to call the races for the Pocono faithful, and, as always, I’ve enjoyed writing these columns to highlight the very best of the racing at our track. There are too many co-workers to thank for all their efforts in bringing racing to you all; suffice it to say they all have harder jobs than me and they do them splendidly to make sure the racing product at Pocono is the best in the country.
Finally, I’d like to thank our fans, the most loyal and knowledgeable around, for their continued support of MSPD racing. I hope you all have a wonderful winter, and I look forward to seeing you all again for what should be an amazing 2013 meet.
Until then, that will do it for this year, but, after a little time off, we’ll see you at the track. Feel free to e-mail me at [email protected].

Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs Week in Review

Nov 7, 2012 | Racing

2012 Horses of the Year
As we wind down the 2012 racing season at Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs, a season which finishes up on Wednesday, November 21, it’s about time to start celebrating some of the outstanding equine performers who have shined for the Pocono faithful this year. In other words, it’s time to honor our horses of the year.
This is a tough task for those of us who do the choosing each and every year, but 2012 has been particularly competitive and, as such, it’s been darn near impossible to distinguish the best from the very, very good. What makes it even more difficult is that so many top horsemen are bringing their horses through Pocono, it’s hard for any horse to sustain consistent success, especially in the highest classes of racing.
Still, it’s fun to look back and recall some of the outstanding horses we’ve seen throughout the campaign, and, after careful deliberation, we came up with four standouts who were just a notch above the rest. So, without further ado, let’s take a look at the 2012 MSPD Horses of the Year.
CLAIMER OF THE YEAR: MCSOCKS
Many horses in the claiming ranks move up and down the ladder until finding a spot that fits them. By contrast, McSocks settled into the $25,000 claiming class for 4-year-olds and just couldn’t be dislodged from the winner’s circle. The gelding won five times in that class at Pocono, including an amazing four-race winning streak in the month of August.  He set his career-mark in one of those races with a 1:50:2 mile. His early speed was simply too hot for most of his foes to handle, and, in typical claiming fashion, McSocks won for four different trainers at Pocono this year, as he scored for Doug Berkeley, Pete Pellegrino, PJ Fraley, and Jason Robinson.
MARE OF THE YEAR: TUI
One of Pocono’s fan favorites, this 4-year-old mare from the Don Wiest barn showed off her prodigious talent in 2012. In 20 races this season, she hit the board in 12 and won seven times. All of the wins came with Anthony Napolitano in the bike, as Anthony would usually send Tui to the front and dare everyone else to play catch-up. The mare was fearless, winning at five condition levels racing primarily against male horses. The highlight of her season came back on May 25, when she scorched the Pocono track to the tune of 1:52:3, a new track record for 4-year-old trotting mares.
TROTTER OF THE YEAR: ANDERS BLUESTONE
This 6-year-old stallion proved himself among the finest trotters on the grounds a year ago, but he was even better in 2012. Week in and week out, the pride of the Eric Ell barn went up against the finest trotters on the grounds and always acquitted himself well. He finished in the money in every one of his eight starts at Pocono this season, and each of those starts came in either Open company or in our highest condition group, the winners of over $25,000 lifetime. With George Napolitano Jr. in the bike, Anders Bluestone won three of those races, with the highlight coming when he beat former Breeders Crown champ Arch Madness in October.
PACER OF THE YEAR: BILLMAR SCOOTER
I can’t remember a year where the top pacing award went to a mare, but this standout from the Amber Buter made it just about impossible to pick anybody else. She was the closest thing to unbeatable that we witnessed at Pocono this season. The 7-year-old won her first two starts at Pocono after arriving from New York in May. After a fourth and a second in her next two starts, Billmar Scooter reeled off four straight victories against the best mares at the track. To add an exclamation point, she followed it up after a stint at Yonkers with back-to-back wins in the fall. Tallying everything up, she won 8 of her 11 starts at Pocono against extremely stiff competition, certainly an award-worthy performance.
Next week in this column, we’ll be wrapping up the 2012 season by honoring the season’s finest drivers and trainers and recapping some of the year’s most memorable races.
That will do it for this week, but we’ll see you at the track. Feel free to e-mail me at [email protected].