by Joshua Potts, USTA Web Newsroom Senior Correspondent

Springfield, IL — The 3-year-old pacing filly Fox Valley Glitz will be taking on older mares in the $125,000 Ann Vonian Championship at Balmoral Park on Saturday (September 15) as part of the 2007 edition of Super Night, the biggest night of racing for Illinois-bred trotters and pacers.

Which leads us to one obvious question: Why isn’t she taking on her fellow foals of 2004 in the Grandma Ann?

“We didn’t like her in the spring when we had to make stakes payments,” said her trainer, Mike Schulfer. “We were even thinking about selling her in the Delaware sale.”

Balmoral Park photo

Fox Valley Glitz lowered her mark to 1:53 for driver Todd Warren on September 2 at Balmoral.

A $9,000 purchase at the 2005 Land of Lincoln Yearling Sale, Fox Valley Glitz is by Sportsmaster, out of the Jate Lobell mare She’s An Original. With a career record of 38-4-9-3, she has amassed $41,052 in earnings, and a mark of 1:53. All four wins and $36,744 of her career earnings came during the current 2007 campaign.

The pacer is owned by the partnership of Jim Strzalka of Chicago, Illinois; James Donald Skvarla of West Dundee, Illinois; Bob Buttice of Beecher, Illinois; and Louis Buttice of Longwood, Florida.

They must be glad they decided against letting her go.

“She just kept getting better,” said Schulfer. “We had four 3-year-olds and staked two of them, Fox Valley Koochie and R Second Hand Rose. Fox Valley Koochie got a fracture and R Second Hand Rose died on me. One day, I was jogging R Second Hand Rose, and then she just died a few days later.

“But ‘Glitz’ kept getting better. There was no stake payment for the Ann Vonian. Since it was for 3-year-olds and up, we decided to enter it.”

Even though Schulfer has a relatively small barn for the Chicago circuit, he has tasted Super Night success. In 2004, he captured two eliminations of the Grandma Ann, with sophomore distaffers Carcano and Canine Candy. Unfortunately, Canine Candy broke stride in the final, and impeded Carcano in the process.

But Carcano came back on Super Night 2005 as a 4-year-old to win the $25,000 Ann Vonian Consolation, with Tim Tetrick in the bike. She rewarded her backers with $47.00, $17.80, and $6.20.

This year, at age six, Carcano is in the Ann Vonian Consolation again. And again, she has North America’s hottest driver, Tim Tetrick, at the controls.

For the last three weeks, Schulfer has turned some of the training chores for ‘Glitz’ and Carcano over to his son, Hans Schulfer, as well as Christine Buttice. Having just taken the written portion of the testing a trainer must go through in order to be licensed, Hans may one day follow in his father’s footsteps.

But Schulfer is quietly optimistic about Fox Valley Glitz’s chances in this year’s Ann Vonian Championship.

“She’s small for a racehorse. But she seems to thrive on work. She just keeps getting better and better every week, and I don’t want to prevent any flow she’s developing,” said the veteran conditioner.

The Ann Vonian Championship will be race number six during Saturday’s Super Night card at Balmoral Park. The special first race post time is 7:00 p.m. (CDT).