The Downs at Mohegan Sun Pocono Week in Review

2019-07-03

June 29 to July 5, 2019

Expectations are a funny thing. They can put you in a mindset where you can only see a few possible outcomes for some upcoming event, when, in actuality, life has a funny way of showing us that anything can happen at any time. That is certainly true in the world of high-stakes harness racing, where unpredictability is built into the sport because of the dependence on animals to repeat performances week after week against other top-notch competitors all trying to do the same ... 

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The Downs at Mohegan Sun Pocono Week In Review

2018-07-04

June 30-July 6, 2018

Harness racing is a fascinating sport, in large part because of its unpredictability. Coming into Sun Stakes Saturday at The Downs at Mohegan Sun Pocono, we previewed the races and focused on the horses that seemed likely to dominate the action. By the time the dust cleared on Saturday night, only one of the four races went even remotely how all of those previews expected it go. And we weren’t alone: The races also flummoxed the betting public, as just one of the four huge ... 

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The Downs at Mohegan Sun Pocono Week In Review

2017-07-05

July 1-7, 2017
It’s always nice when the hype is justified. We’ve been talking about Sun Stakes Saturday for a while now, and that conversation really ramped after some fascinating eliminations. What dominated those discussions was the fact that, unlike in past years, there were no horses that simply dwarfed the fields they were scheduled to face. The four stakes races featured on Saturday figured to be extremely competitive.
And that’s just how it turned out to be. Although ... 

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The Downs at Mohegan Sun Pocono Week in Review – Sun Stakes Saturday stars shine!

2016-07-06

July 2-8, 2016
I’ve had the opportunity to call two Breeders Crowns during my time as track announcer at The Downs at Mohegan Sun Pocono, and yet I don’t think I’ve ever been a part of a race as highly anticipated as the Ben Franklin pace that was contested last Saturday at Pocono as part of Sun Stakes Saturday. Three of the sport’s most talented horses at the absolute peak of their powers battled it out in a race that justified every bit of the hype. And although the result doesn’t ... 

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Top horses in North America battle on Super Stakes Saturday

2015-08-19

The two top-rated horses in 2015 North American harness racing, the three-year-old geldings Pinkman and Wiggle It Jiggleit, will continue their battle for #1 status in the sport this Saturday night during the $2,435,000 Super Stakes Saturday card at The Downs at Mohegan Sun Pocono, going in consecutive races – first Pinkman in the $500,000 Colonial Trot, and then Wiggle It Jiggleit in the $500,000 Battle of the Brandywine Pace.
The three three-year-old races, which include the $350,000 ... 

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$2.2M in purses and a night of events for Sun Stakes Saturday

2015-07-01

Saturday, July 4th, the best of the best will land in Northeast PA for the $2,268,000 Sun Stakes Saturday supercard, featuring the $500,000 Championships for the Ben Franklin FFA pace, the Earl Beal Jr. three-year-old colt trot, and the Max C. Hempt three-year-old colt pace, and the $300,000 James Lynch Championship for three-year-old filly pacers.   All four of these events have consolation events, and there are three other Invitationals/Opens on the monster card.
The day begins ... 

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Sun Stakes Saturday the fastest card ever!

2014-06-25

The great card of racing this past Saturday at Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs, primarily populated by elimination races for this Saturday’s $2.2M Sun Stakes Saturday, flirted with the divisional world record table on more than one occasion without any new names being set down, but the card as a whole did produce one record – according to the USTA’s Trotting and Pacing Guide, it was the fastest card ever in harness history, ... 

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Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs Week in Review

2012-07-04

June 29-July 5, 2012
When I first heard that we at Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs were going to be hosting not one, not two, but three major stakes races in a single day, I immediately thought back to the last time we had that kind of star-packed card, the 2010 Breeders Crown. While 3 stakes races can’t quite match up to the 12 we had that October night two years ago, the excitement ... 

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Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs Week in Review

2012-06-29

June 22-28, 2012
Normally, I use this space each week to detail the exploits of several of the racing stars at Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs. This week is an exception, because one performance was so outstanding that it outshone all others, even in a week that witnessed several track records falling by the wayside in the eliminations for the Ben Franklin, James M. Lynch, and Max ... 

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Googoo Gaagaa Sets World Record in Winning Beal at Pocono

2012-06-24

June 23, 2012
On a night when three track records and two world records had already been established at Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs, Googoo Gaagaa needed to come up with something special to steal the show.
How does the fastest mile ever on a 5/8-mile oval work for you?
 ... 

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