Current Chip Finishes Season Undefeated

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Published: October 27, 2010 07:38 pm EDT

Current Chip was born to be perfect. Not that anyone knew it at the time. But after two undefeated seasons in Maine, everyone knows now

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The three-year-old filly trotter, bred and co-owned by Anson, Maine resident Tom Dillon, completed her stakes career in Maine 21-for-21 by winning the Maine Standardbred Breeders Stakes championship on October 17 at Scarborough Downs. Never was a horse within fewer than two and three-quarter lengths of her at the finish line.

Trained by Donald Richards and driven primarily by Mark Athearn, she has earned $153,175 lifetime.

“Like any true athlete, whether human or animal, I believe they’re born to be what they are,” said Dillon, who owns Current Chip with Walter Hight. “You can groom them to make them a little better, but they have to be born that way. I would say she was born to be what she was.”

Dillon did not expect much when he bred his stallion Current Cast to his mare Fast Blade in 2006. Fast Blade, a daughter of Pine Chip with family ties to 1966 Gran Premio Lotteria winner Cheer Honey and 1971 Hambletonian Oaks champ Gay Blossom, had not produced a winner in five previous tries.

“She made it up pretty well with mine,” Dillon said, laughing. “Her sire is a very even mannered type horse. Her dam, I bought and didn’t know much about her. I ended up giving the mare away, before I realized how good 'Chip' was.”

The sure-footed Current Chip won at 10 different tracks during her career. She recorded the most victories at Scarborough, seven, including her two Maine Standardbred Breeders Stakes championships.

“I never thought much about going undefeated until people started talking about it,” Dillon said. “When you’ve got five or six races to go, people are starting to talk. I just hoped she did. I was pretty cool about the whole thing until the last two or three starts, especially the last start. Everybody wanted her to do what she was supposed to do.

“Even though I didn’t feel there were any as fast as her, they’re always capable of running into bad luck, getting lame, drawing bad posts. But she overcame all of those things. She had to adapt to sharp turns, fields with trailers, fair-type racing. None of it deterred her at all.”

Dillon said Current Chip was “fairly trouble free” throughout it all.

“It was just a matter of feeding her and that was it,” he said.

With her stakes career concluded in Maine, Dillon and Hight are selling Current Chip at the upcoming Standardbred Horse Sale in Pennsylvania. She is scheduled to be sold November 13.

“She’s been very good to me,” Dillon said. “When you have a trotter like her, and never have to worry about her making a break, that’s pretty good.

“She’s a good looking mare,” he added. “She looks the part of what she is.”

Perfect.


This story courtesy of Harness Racing Communications, a division of the U.S. Trotting Association. For more information, visit www.ustrotting.com.

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