Actual horse racing aside, it has been a big week for trainer Jimmy Takter --- even if it is only Tuesday
.
The New York Times has run an expansive piece on the Swedish-born trainer, who has once again cracked the mainstream spotlight due to his success with standout Bettors Delight filly See You At Peelers. The distaffer is five-for-five to begin her three-year-old campaign and is undefeated in 18 career starts. The bay lass defeated her male counterparts in the Yonkers Raceway's Art Rooney Pace earlier this season, and Takter has gone on the record multiple times as saying that if his filly is headed to the Delaware County Fairgrounds in Ohio this fall, it will be to match up with the males once again in the Little Brown Jug.
“He (Takter) thinks outside the box,” Perry Soderberg, a fellow Swede and bloodstock agent that helps Takter select horses at auction, was quoted as saying in The New York Times article. “Jimmy is never satisfied with a performance. He always sees something that he believes he can improve on.”
To read The New York Times article in its entirety, click here.
Also, on Tuesday, July 5, the Harness Racing Living Hall of Fame announced that Takter has been placed on the ballot of election to the prestigious living hall. According to a release, the move to place Takter on the ballot was made during committee voting which took place amid the traditional Fourth of July Grand Circuit week and Hall of Fame Dinner in Goshen, New York.
Takter will go before the voters --- qualified members of the U. S. Harness Writers Association (USHWA) and members of the Living Hall of Fame --- this summer, and if he garners 75 per cent of the 'yes-no' voting, he will be inducted into the living hall.
Takter, the United States' Trainer of the Year in 2010, is having another terrific season in 2011 – but a little surprisingly, the stable this year is headed by a pacer instead of any number of trotters, who are used for harness racing exclusively in Takter’s native Sweden.
But the transplanted New Jerseyite has by no means given up training trotters – ample evidence being Pastor Stephen, last year’s two-year-old trotting colt of the year south of the border, and among everybody’s top contenders for harness racing’s biggest race, The Hambletonian, in August.
In fact, it was his dexterity with the trotting gait over the years which has brought him to the pinnacle of the sport. There was Moni Maker, a mare who became an international champion and one of the greatest trotters of all time; Malabar Man, U.S. Horse of the Year, two-time divisional champion, and Hambletonian winner – and the list could go on and on. Takter is the only conditioner to have been named Trainer of the Year three times (1996-2000-2010) by USHWA.
Joining Takter in the Hall of Fame mailing this summer will be a ballot containing this year’s two nominees for the Communicators Hall of Fame: Jean Emerson, publisher of the respected New England Harness News and tireless worker for harness racing; and Moira Fanning, whose knowledge, polish, and demeanor has helped her work her way to one of the most important jobs in the sport, coordinating countless areas for the Hambletonian Society and their championship year-end series, the Breeders Crown.
The results of the balloting should be announced just before the end of summer.
(With files from The New York Times and the Harness Racing Living Hall of Fame)