$1.7 Million PA Sire Stakes Championship Night Saturday 9/5/15

Sep 2, 2015 | 50th anniversary of racing, Racing

The richest Sire Stakes Championship series begins Saturday night, September 5th,  at The Downs at Mohegan Sun Pocono will host four $350,000 Pennsylvania Sire Stakes Championship for three-year-olds. Each of the four divisions will also have a $60,000 Consolation race; the total program on Saturday at Pocono will distribute purses of $1,770,000.
COLT PACERS
$350,000 Championship – race 12
$60,000 Consolation – race 5
Championship record: 1:48.4, McWicked, 2014 (fastest Championship in PA history)
Defending champion from 2YO year: Yankee Bounty
Leading pointwinner in four preliminaries: Lost For Words
Most of the attention in the “glamour division” will be focused on Wakizashi Hanover, already a winner of over $840,000 this year, including the North America Cup Final, and regarded as second-best on the North American scene to the amazing Wiggle It Jiggleit. Wakizashi has driven post five for the Championship, and as usual trainer Joann Looney-King has tapped Tim Tetrick to drive the altered son of Dragon Again for the Tri County Stable of Nova Scotia. The sophomore has experience over the track, winning a Hempt elimination and then finished fourth from a difficult draw, and following that outing up with a second to “Wiggle” in the Battle of the Brandywine.
It’s unusual to see a defending champion and a leading prelim pointswinner regarded as “outsiders” in the field, but Yankee Bounty and Lost For Words, respectively, are not only figurative outsiders, but the literal outsiders as well in the field of eight – Yankee Bounty, starting from post seven for all-time Sire Stakes driving champion Dave Palone,does come off a 1:49.3 win in a Sire Stakes prelim, while Lost For Words (post eight, David Miller) was the only three-time winner in the Sires prelims.
COLT TROTTERS
$350,000 Championship – race 11
$60,000 Consolation – race 4
Championship record: 1:52.4, Father Patrick, 2014
Defending champion from 2YO year: Billy Flynn (the only 3YO who did not qualify for these finals)
Leading pointwinner in four preliminaries: Wicker Hanover
Wicker Hanover and Uncle Lasse were both three-time Sires prelim winners. Wicker Hanover, an Explosive Matter colt who has done well on or off the pace, will start from post six for driver Andrew McCarthy, trainer Ross Croghan, and the Christer Haggstorm Racing Stable Inc., while the Donato Hanover colt Uncle Lasse, third in both the Hambletonian Final and the Colonial, drew post two for driver David Miller, trainer Jimmy Takter, and owners Solveig’s Racing Partners and Goran Falk.
A horse conspicuous by his absence is Pinkman, #2 in the prelim pointstandings while achieving three victories, but when he won the Hambletonian trainer Takter chose the Triple Crown road for him, and he goes Saturday night at Yonkers in the Yonkers Trot, the second Crown leg. But even with two recent losses to Crazy Wow, in the Colonial and Yonkers Trot elim, Pinkman likely would have been a big favorite here, and using the “glass is half full” theory, the race is much more competitive this way.
FILLY PACERS
$350,000 Championship – race 10
$60,000 Consolation – race 3
Championship record: 1:49, Economy Terror
Defending champion from 2YO year: Southwind Roulette
Leading pointwinner in four preliminaries: Somewhere Sweet
Perhaps the best testimony to the contentiousness of this division all year, and in theory here Saturday, is the fact that prelim pointleader Somewhere Sweet won only once in the prelims. But the daughter of Somebeachsomewhere, trained by Brian Brown for Miller’s Stable, has been a very consistent miss, winning half her ten seasonal starts and never finishing worse than fourth, and she draws the favorable post two for driver David Miller.
There were two two-time prelim winners in this division, but for Saturday they had the misfortune of drawing the two outside spots on the gate: Serious Filly (PP7, also trained by Brown, Tim Tetrick listed) and Safe From Terror (PP8, trainer Ron Burke, also listing Tetrick on the early sheet).
FILLY TROTTERS
$350,000 Championship – race 9
$60,000 Consolation – race 14
Championship record: 1:51.3, Check Me Out, 2012 (fastest trot Champion ever)
Defending champion from 2YO year: Wild Honey
Leading pointwinner in four preliminaries: Sarcy (not entered), Smokinmombo #2
Last year’s divisional champion Wild Honey has come back sharply in 2015, with a win in the Hambletonian Oaks Final and two Sire Stakes wins. The Cantab Hall filly is likely to be held as the horse to beat despite drawing post eight for driver Dave Palone, trainer Jimmy Takter, and the ownership combine of Takter, Fielding, Liverman, and Fielding.
Jimmy Takter is also the trainer of Sarcy, who was #1 in the prelim points, but that filly has not raced since finishing fifth in the Oaks Final on August 8 and has not won since June 25, so she is not entered in the Championship. But Wild Honey is certainly a fine “backup plan.”
FINISHING LINES – Dave Palone has 38 career wins in Pennsylvania Sire Stakes Championships, and the driver in second needs a telescope to see him even though winning five Championships last year – Yannick Gingras, with a total of 12. We know Yannick will not duplicate that output in 2015, as he will be driving Pinkman at Yonkers on Saturday. Palone, however, has a call in three of the four Championships, and there are two to-be-resolved double calls in the race he currently is not listed.

Filly trotters take center stage in Stallion and Sire Stakes action

Jun 16, 2015 | Racing

PA-sired three-year-old trotting fillies provide the early week features at The Downs at Mohegan Sun Pocono, as the misses will compete in second leg action of a $100,000 Stallion Series event on Tuesday, June 16th,  and a $222,867 Sire Stakes contest on Wednesday, June 17th.  All of the races have drawn full fields of nine.
The Stallion Series races will find three of the five first leg winners returning, including two from the ubiquitous, unavoidable Team of Top Trotting, Team Takter. Kirsi Hanover, who won her first Stallion start despite suffering broken equipment, drew the inside in the sixth race fourth division, with Jimmy Takter himself also to drive, while Speak To Me, beginning from post seven in the tenth race last cut, will be handled by Scott Zeron. Manhattan Miss, the other filly looking to make it two straight in the Stallion Series, has the rail for driver Mike Wilder and trainer Marty Wollam in the third race second division; the other Stallion Series races are slotted for races one and four.
In Wednesday’s Sire Stakes action, Trotting Team Ubiquitous had two of the four first leg winners, and Takter has them both back in at Pocono. Sarcy will be out first of the pair in the ninth race second division, with Yannick Gingras down to drive, but she will be facing the two non-Takter winners at The Meadows: Livininthefastlane (post five, driver Andy Miller for trainer/wife Julie), the fastest of the four winners in western PA at 1:53, and Magic Marker, who will begin from post seven for driver David Miller and trainer Nifty Norman.
The other Sires winner to date, Wild Honey, begins from post four for Takter and Gingras in the tenth race third division. Wild Honey was rated by many as the second-best filly nationally in 2014 behind the brilliant but mercurial Mission Brief, and she will look to add to her impressive record of 11 wins in 13 career starts.
In the seventh race first division, Takter may again have a favorite in Smexi, who was a neck behind Livininthefastlane in the first leg and has since taken a division of the Curries And Ives Filly stake. But driver Corey Callahan will have to overcome both the outermost post nine and Blessings Counted (post eight, driver Dan Rawlings for trainer Rick Beinhauer), also second, to Magic Marker, in the first Sire Stakes round.
Both nights feature 14-race cards beginning at 6:30 p.m.