Wilkes-Barre, PA — Pocono Downs at Mohegan Pennsylvania starts off its 2026 season with a 1 p.m. program on Saturday (Feb. 14), and it is as solid a racing card as may have been presented during any of the previous 60 Pocono season openers.
There are two $27,500 fast-class features for seasoned veterans — one on each gait. The trot, carded as race 6, is a handicap affair, with the four outermost starters in the field of seven showing a victory on their top lines. The Brodster, starting from the far outside for trainer Per Engblom, will be going for his fifth straight victory; his stablemate Ultion Face N, a wire-to-wire at Yonkers last Thursday, starts just to his inside.
Engblom also has a pair in the $27,500 pacing headliner. Pinny Tiger A had won five straight starts before ending 2025 with a head defeat at the hands of Lou Hill – the other Engblom trainee, and away from the races since that Dec. 27 triumph. Pinny Tiger A opened his 2026 campaign with a rallying win in 1:50.4 at The Meadows on Jan. 31, and will start from post 3 in this seven-horse field, with Lou Hill beginning from post 5.
The inaugural card will also feature five $15,000 divisions of the first preliminary leg of the Game Of Claims Pacing Series, with the fields in for a base tag of $25,000 this week. Brandon Presto, the leading trainer at The Meadows, will load up a truck with six Game Of Claims Series horses for an eastern invasion, and the sextet show 11 wins among their past performance lines. Paul Blumenfeld, Cory Stratton, and Darren Taneyhill will have starters from their respective barns in four of the five divisions of the series, which culminates in a $35,000 final on Saturday, March 7.
Tuesday (Feb. 10) also was the second consecutive day that Pocono hosted qualifying races for horses prepping for this campaign; weekly qualifiers will shift to Wednesdays after this week. On Tuesday, with the temperatures “balmy” as elevating from 26 degrees to 31 degrees during the session, there were three sub-1:55 times turned in, the fastest among them the 1:54.2 turned in by Expedited Service, one of four winners George Napolitano Jr. drove. Mindtrip (1:54.3) and Dandy’s Mercy (1:54.4) clocked the other swift clockings. On the trot, trainer Jill Roland had the fastest two winners, Te Amo Lindy (1:57.2) and Robbie Pev (1:57.4).
Both Monday’s and Tuesday’s qualifiers are viewable on the PHHA website.
Pocono will draw Wednesday (Feb. 11) for 1 p.m. racing on Monday, (Feb. 16) and on Thursday (Feb. 12) for racing next Tuesday (Feb. 17); the box for the pari-mutuel cards closes at 9 a.m. After that, the pari-mutuel draws will revert to their normal schedule: drawing Monday for Saturday, Tuesday for Monday, and Wednesday for Tuesday.