by Bill Heller, for the New York Sire Stakes

Syracuse, NY — Fittingly, Lon Frocione is only hoping that his 3-year-old trotting colt Magic gets a slice of the $150,000 New York Sires Stakes Final on the $1.2 million Night of Champions at Yonkers Raceway on Saturday, September 15.

The 75-year-old harness racing industry leader, who still drives horses occasionally, is an expert on slices. The success of his Deli-Boy meat distribution company in Syracuse has allowed him to continue his passion for harness racing for decades, racing under the name Deli-Boy Standardbreds.

Magic will be driven by his Vernon Downs-based trainer Tony Mondi, who thought he had given up driving a couple years ago.

“I convinced him to come back to drive this year,” Frocione said. “I told him, ‘Tony, you know the horse. Come back and drive.’”

Mondi couldn’t turn him down.

“I’ve trained horses for Lon for over 30 years,” Mondi said. “He’s been a blessing for us. There may be some owners as good as Lon Frocione, but there are definitely none better. He gives you good horses and never puts any pressure on you. He gives you the horses and lets you train them. There’s not enough of that. He’s one-in-a-million.”

Magic is good, but will face perhaps the most competitive field of horses in the final. He drew post seven in Saturday’s fifth race.

“He’s a nice horse, but there are some really nice horses in the final,” Mondi said. “He needs to get lucky to beat those horses, but he leaves well. That allows him to get easy trips.”

Even so, Magic has won just two of 11 starts this year. But he also has three seconds and three thirds and earnings of $74,681. As a 2-year-old, he had three wins and five seconds in eight starts, making $36,125. That’s $110,806, not bad for a yearling Frocione purchased for $28,000.

“We’ve been quite happy with the colt,” Frocione said. “Tony did an incredible job with him. He has extreme gate speed. He’s the type of horse that, because he can get position, can hang in there and get a good piece.”

Frocione has another star in the Sires Stakes, 2-year-old trotter Big Apple Deli, who won two Sires Stakes legs before being forced to the sidelines and missing the final.

Frocione won a Sires Stakes final in 1998 at Yonkers with the 2-year-old trotting colt Kash Lure, who was also trained by Mondi. Kash Lure needed to finish fifth in the final leg of the Sires Stakes to qualify for the Championship. He finished sixth, but there was a disqualification which moved Frocione’s trotter up to fifth.

In the post parade of the Final, Kash Lure threw a shoe and had to return to the paddock. When he returned, it was post time and Kash Lure, driven by Wally Hennessey, didn’t have time to warm up. All he did was go wire-to-wire and win a tight photo.

“We won by the shortest of noses for $150,000,” Frocione said. “It was a fluke for getting in. It was a fluke for winning it.”

Frocione wouldn’t mind another fluke this year, but if Magic finishes in the top five, he’ll get a slice of a nice purse.

“We really didn’t think he was top-tier,” Frocione said. “I told Tony we were eighth or ninth best at the start of the year. But some of the others have had problems and aren’t around.”

Magic is.