The cream of the crop of this season’s Pennsylvania-sired two-year-old trotters and pacers will gather together this Saturday night (September 6) at Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs for their $1,240,000 Championship Night program.
The horses, in both the $260,000 finals and the $50,000 consolations, earned their way into these races by having the highest point totals based on finish position in four Pennsylvania Sires Stakes preliminaries raced at the state’s tracks over the last two months.
The four Championship events are slotted as Race 9 through Race 12 on Saturday’s 16-dash card at Pocono.
Here’s a look at each championship race in the order they will be conducted:
TWO-YEAR-OLD PACING FILLIES
(stakes record – 1:51.1, Economy Terror, 2007)
These fillies have been very competitive among themselves, as this is the only of the four divisions that will find no four-time preliminary winner looking for a sweep in the Championship. In fact, there has never been a ‘sweeper’ in the two-year-old pacing filly class since a record of prelim points was started in 2002, a fact which will obviously stay intact in 2014. What’s more, the prelim point leader has not won the two-year-old pacing filly championship since Lady Annie in 2007.
Aria Hanover (Post 2, driver Tim Tetrick listed) and Southwind Roulette (Post 5, Yannick Gingras) figure to be the focal points of attention after showing three wins and a third in their prelims to be tied for the top in this group. Southwind Roulette was third in her first PASS start, then has taken her last three; among the conquered in her final prelim was Aria Hanover, who had won three straight going into that event.
TWO-YEAR-OLD TROTTING FILLIES
(stakes record – 1:54.3, Sand Violent Blu, 2011, and Designed To Be, 2013)
In contrast to their pacing counterparts, a pair of two-year-old trotting fillies have swept their four prelims and their Championship: Coulantine in 2004, and Fashion Feline in 2009. And the leading point winner has won their Championship in each of the last three years (the stakes speed setters with Frau Blucher in between).
Looking to add herself the ‘sweeper’ ranks is Wild Honey (Post 7, Yannick Gingras). In keeping her record unblemished in the prelims last time out, Wild Honey defeated Gatka Hanover (Post 8, Ron Pierce), who had also won her three prelims heretofore, by a half-length. Neither filly will particularly benefit from their outside post draw, making this shape up as a very tough affair.
TWO-YEAR-OLD TROTTING COLTS
(stakes record – 1:54.3, Stormin Normand, 2011)
In setting this division’s speed mark, Stormin Normand also completed the ‘sire stakes sweep,’ the only two-year-old trotting colt to have accomplished the feat.
Attempting to emulate the ‘Storm’ will be Billy Flynn (Post 4, Brett Miller), who is six-for-six in his young career. But there are three two-time PASS prelim winners in this field – Honor And Serve, Lima Pride, and Piercewave Hanover – plus Walter White, a horse who came within a head of Billy Flynn two starts back, so no one is conceding the honours to the unbeaten horse going in.
TWO-YEAR-OLD PACING COLTS
(stakes record – 1:50.2, One More Laugh, 2009)
Like his colt counterpart on the trotting side, Stormin Normand, One More Laugh became his division’s only sweeper when he set the stakes mark five years back. (The leading prelim pointleader has won the two-year-old pacing colt in three of the last five years, including Allstar Partner last year.)
Probably set to draw the majority of the focus here is Yankee Bounty (Post 3, Yannick Gingras), who like Billy Flynn is both six-for-six lifetime and unbeaten in the sires stakes prelims. But also like Billy Flynn, Yankee Bounty had a horse who gave him a scare – Wazikashi Hanover came within a neck of an upset last time – and again like Billy Flynn, Yankee Bounty faces three opponents with multiple PASS prelim wins: McArdles Lightning (who had three) along with Dragon Eddy and Lost For Words (two each).
THE UNDERCARD
There will be $50,000 consolations for each of the four PASS divisions’ horses who came up just shy in trying to earn themselves a place in the final.
It does seem strange to call a contest an ‘undercard’ event when the field of eight has combined earnings of $12,112,270, especially when the first three horses in the post parade have bankrolled $9,956,663 among them. But this is a special field, for a special race – the $50,000 Modern Family Trot, honouring the recently-deceased free-for-aller who was based with the Daryl Bier stable right at Pocono, and who was competitive with this national group the last two years. Those ‘first three horses,’ by the way, are Wishing Stone, Market Share, and Arch Madness, and when mixed with Sevruga and four other hard-hitters they should give a fit tribute to their fallen fellow competitor.
There will also be a $50,000 Invitational Pace, the Adieu to the Almost Summer Pace (no doubt if this race was held in the western part of the state, it would be called the Adios to the Almost Summer Pace, but that’s another story). Millionaires Golden Receiver and Bolt The Duer will draw attention here, along with two sharp four-year-olds on three-race winning streaks: Sunfire Blue Chip and Mach It So.
The first of Saturday’s 16 races is scheduled for 6:30 p.m.
And, of course, on Sunday afternoon, the $1,240,000 PA Sire Stakes Three-Year-Old Championships Day will be held at Harrah's Philadelphia, likely to feature a few horse you may have heard of -- Father Patrick and Nuncio, McWicked and Somewhere In L A, Shake It Cerry, Sandbetweenurtoes, horses like that. The draw for those races is Wednesday.
(PHHA/Pocono)