from the PHHA/Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs

Wilkes-Barre PA — Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs hosts the three remaining $30,000 championship races in the Bobby Weiss Series this Tuesday and Wednesday, with the late-developing 3- and 4-year-olds racing for the glory in the male trot and female pace divisions the first day and the lady trotters then closing out the quartet of series finals.

It’s hard to make a case against a horse who has won all four of his series prelims, each week posting the fastest clocking of all divisions and last week the fastest of all (1:53.3), and no one doubts that the Justice Hall gelding Ray Hall will be the one to beat as he starts from post four Tuesday for trainer Mark Harder and driver Tim Tetrick.

His main challengers figure to be You Rock My World (post seven, driver Scott Zeron), who after recording 3-2-2 finishes behind Ray Hall finally got away from him in the post draw and posted his own victory, and Sixteen Mikes (post five, driver Mike Simons), who had won three Weiss prelims before challenging Ray Hall last week and finishing third. Also to get some support will be Time To Quit (post six), who won one series leg, was second to Ray Hall last week, and starts for the powerful Ron Burke/Matt Kakaley team.

The filly pace has several intriguing contenders, but based on recent “hotness” one would give the edge to the Dragon Again filly Prima Dragon, who went 2-2-1-1 in her Weiss prelims, including the fastest of all the prelims, 1:52.4, on April 8. She’ll begin from post two for trainer Mike Dowdall and hot-driving Brett Miller, who had four wins at The Downs on Saturday.

The Burke/Kakaley trainer/driver pairing always seems to have a contender in these series, and they have a good one here in Envious Hanover, who drew just inside Prima Dragon. Envious Hanover was the only three-time prelim winner, but the one defeat came to Prima Dragon in that April 8 mile, though she was only a head shy at the wire.

Wednesday’s Weiss championship for trotting distaffs is thought as a “coronation ceremony” for Perfect Alliance, a daughter of Credit Winner who is eight for eight this year, including the fastest division in all three of the Weiss prelims in which she competed (fastest 1:53). The Julie Miller-trained mare will start from post six for driver Yannick Gingras, who took over her sulky seat last Wednesday after her regular driver (and Julie’s husband) Andy Miller was injured in a racing accident the night before at Yonkers.

Finishing Lines: The first Weiss Championship, for male pacers, was held this past Saturday and was won by the Kent’s On Nuke gelding A Stitch In Time, overcoming post nine for driver George Napolitano, Jr. and trainer Lou Pena in spectacular fashion — making the lead past a :26.1 opener and then posting devastating middle fractions of :53.1 and 1:20.1 en route to a 1:48.3 triumph, only two-fifths off the world record for 4-year-old pacing geldings on five-eighths-mile tracks (ironically, one of the co-holders of this world mark, Dynamic Youth, won on the Saturday Pocono undercard).