Wilkes-Barre, PA – Dilly Hanover won the $50,000 Bobby Weiss Series championship for 3-year-old male trotters by 2-1/4 lengths over Confident Volo in a career-best 1:54.2 on Monday (April 27) at Pocono Downs at Mohegan Pennsylvania. Nose Jammer finished third.
Dilly Hanover, trained by Emily Bost and driven by Braxten Boyd, captured three of his four starts in the Weiss Series. Unraced as a 2-year-old, Dilly Hanover has won four of five races overall this season and earned $50,850 for owners Bost, R K 4 Racing and Bruce Potter. The gelding, a son of International Moni-Dornello, was bred by Hanover Shoe Farms.
Captain Vodka, who started from post seven and led the field through fractions of :27.2, :56.3, and 1:24.3, faced first-over pressure from Dilly Hanover at the half and briefly relinquished the lead on the backstretch before battling back on the inside. The two raced side by side on the final turn before Captain Vodka, the race’s 5-2 third choice, went off stride entering the stretch.
Dilly Hanover, the slight 8-5 favorite over Confident Volo, paid $5.20 to win.
For an April 2 feature on Dilly Hanover, click here.
The $20,000 Weiss Consolation went to the Walner gelding King Of The Wind by open lengths in 1:57. Three early miscuers, including the favorite, aided King Of The Wind, who brushed to command off the first turn and was not threatened home. Absent from the first Weiss prelim, a winner in the second, and a breaker in the last prelim, King Of The Wind was back on his game Monday for driver Anthony Napolitano, red-hot trainer Joe Bongiorno, and El Dorado Stables.
Raspalia N, six-for-six Stateside before being photoed in 1:50 by Worklifebalance in her last start, turned in a 1:50 victory of her own in the $17,500 overnight feature for pacing distaffs. The daughter of Johny Rock, very distinctive in her red hood, earned a new continental mark while triumphing handily for driver Tyler Buter, trainer Agostino Abbatiello, and Durrazzano Stable LLC, and may still be able to climb rungs on the classladder.
Drivers with multiple wins on the card were Anthony Napolitano with four, Braxten Boyd with three, and George Napolitano Jr. with two. Lou Pena was the only trainer to win twice, with both success stories driven by “ANap.”
The Weiss Series action winds up Tuesday (April 28) at 1 p.m. at Pocono, with $50,000 Championships for both gaits of fillies. The trotter Concise will attempt to become the only Weiss entrant to capture a Championship after winning in all three preliminaries, while the pace will be of a different makeup, with no entrant having captured two preliminaries, but six of the eight having taken one series prelim. Free Pocono program pages are or will be available at www.phha.org. With files from PHHA at Pocono Downs at Mohegan Pennsylvania.