Defending Pennsylvania champion Captain Cowgirl poured it on through a :55.3 back half en route to a sparking 1:49.3 victory in Saturday’s $133,830 PA Sire Stakes at Hollywood Casino at The Meadows. Sweet And Feisty captured the other division of the event for three-year-old filly pacers, known as the Adios Betty (June 11).
Captain Cowgirl kicked off her sophomore campaign with a middling fourth-place finish in the PaSS opening leg, but she was all business in the Adios Betty — even though winning driver Aaron Merriman altered his original intention to tuck.
“I was going to do that, but she felt so good I went on with her,” Merriman said. “It’s hard to slow horses down at this level when they’re stirred up.”
The pace was just fine for the daughter of Captaintreacherous-Rideintothesunset, who not only set a lifetime mark, but she also turned in the fastest mile this season by a sophomore filly pacer on a five-eighths-mile track.
Jim King, Jr. trains Captain Cowgirl, who now has banked $289,977 lifetime, for Jo Ann Looney-King and Kenneth Frieder.
Sweet And Feisty entered the Adios Betty off a 1:50.4 triumph in a Stallion Series split, but owner/trainer Mitchell York said that wasn’t the primary reason he promoted her to the Sire Stakes.
“We thought she had that kind of talent from the very beginning,” York said of the daughter of Sweet Lou-Fast And Fiesty. “But she ended up with two broken bones last year and couldn’t race. We didn’t know how she would come back.”
When Ronnie Wrenn, Jr. angled her off cover, Sweet And Feisty blew past pacesetter Lydeo and defeated her by a length in 1:52.3. Somesweetsomewhere completed the ticket.
York indicated his filly will race primarily in Pennsylvania this year.
$60,000 PA Stallion Series — Three-Year-Old Filly Pacers
Wrenn and trainer Ron Burke teamed for a pair of Stallion Series wins with Sweet Kisses and Galleria Hanover while Hood Party took the other division.
When Sweet Kisses moved first-over from third, she gobbled up the leaders and scored in a career-best 1:51, four and three-quarters of a length better than Heartbreak Hotel, with Miss Helen Hanover third.
“I drove her once last year and liked her,” Wrenn said. “I think she’d be competitive in the sires stakes, if that’s what the connections choose to do.
Burke Racing Stable, J&T Silva – Purnel & Libby, Knox Services and Phillip Collura campaign Sweet Kisses.
Wrenn and Burke each collected four wins on the 13-race card while Aaron Merriman fashioned a three-bagger.
Live racing at The Meadows resumes Wednesday when the program features a pair of carryovers: $16,339.83 in the Jackpot Pick 5 (Race 4), $4,847.26 in the final-race Super Hi-5. First post is 12:45 p.m.
(MSOA/Meadows)