by Bill Heller for the New York Sire Stakes

Yonkers, NY — Fifty-four years after becoming the youngest driver to win the Hambletonian, you’d think that Hall of Fame trainer Harry Harvey had seen about everything there is to see on a racetrack.

But even he was surprised when Lislea Phia, the 3-year-old home-bred pacing filly he trains for Yonkers Raceway’s owner and president Tim Rooney, managed to overcome a break to win and dead-heat for a victory in two legs of the New York Sires Stakes, performances which earned her a spot in the $150,000 New York Sires Stakes Final. The event will be featured on the $1.2 million Night of Champions program at Yonkers Raceway on Saturday, September 15.

“It just doesn’t happen,” the 83-year-old Harvey said. “I’ve been around for a while, and, normally when they make a break, the ballgame’s over.”

Not every ballgame. So Harvey, who still trains five horses, and Rooney, his client for 42 years, have a contender in the final as the Night of Champions returns to Yonkers Raceway after a two-year hiatus at Saratoga while Yonkers added video lottery terminals and received a facelift.

Asked about his uncommonly long relationship with Rooney, Harvey laughed and said, “We speak to each other still.”

Both of them have stayed the course. Harvey, who has a birthday next month — “I’m going to be 40,” he joked — is tickled to have another good horse.

“When you come up with a good horse, you still enjoy it,” he said. “She’s a very good filly.”

Rooney resisted countless offers to sell Yonkers Raceway, and the Night of Champions celebrates his steadfastness, not only with holding on to the track until the arrival of VLTs to revitalize racing, but maintaining his faith in the family pedigree which produced not only Lislea Phia. She has two successful full sisters: 4-year-old Lislea Bella, who also starred in the Sires Stakes and has earned just under $200,000, and 2-year-old Lislea Sophia, who has two wins and two seconds in five starts and earnings of $35,805 this year. The trio are out of Rooney’s mare Cat Thief, who has scored winners with her first three foals.

Lislea Phia has eight victories, four seconds and two thirds in 23 career starts and earnings of $213,519.

All three fillies are by Lislea, who Rooney stands at stud in New York. Rooney owns and bred Lislea’s dam, Lisheen, who also produced $2 million earner Lis Mara.

“I trained Lislea and raced him,” Harvey said. “This horse was meant to be a good horse. He won four races as a 2-year-old and then he had suspensory problems. He came back, but he wasn’t the same. Mr. Rooney wanted to try standing him in New York. He went to considerable expense to maintain that horse in New York. And he had faith in this mare (Cat Thief).”

Rooney has been rewarded with three talented full sisters. Lislea Sophia, Cat Thief’s third foal, just may be good enough to follow her two sisters’ considerable accomplishments.

For now, all eyes are on Lislea Phia, who broke in the $59,101 New York Sires Stakes leg at Yonkers on June 22, but recovered to win with Jim Morrill, Jr. in the bike. With Brian Cross driving on August 27 at Monticello — like Yonkers a half-mile track — she broke and finished in a dead heat for first.

“She’s a big filly, and we trained her on a five-eighths (mile) track all the time,” Harvey said. “The half-mile tracks’ turns are tighter.”

In her final prep for the final, a $54,585 Sires Stakes leg on Batavia’s half-mile oval on September 5, Lislea Phia finished third without breaking and paced her final quarter in :28.2.

If she wins at Yonkers, you’re going to have to search to find someone who’ll be happier than Rooney.

“It’d be a vindication in many respects,” Harvey said. “It’d be kind of cool.”