from the Meadowlands Publicity Department

East Rutherford, NJ — In horse racing, the awkward, teenage years would be the equivalent of a horse’s four-year-old season. He is too old to hang with his own age group, and he is too young to take the physical demands of going one-on-one against the older horses. Justice Hall is one of those four-year-olds, and he makes his final start of 2005 in Friday night’s (December 30) sixth race at the Meadowlands, a $35,000 conditioned trot.

“He just had those four-year-old blues this season,” said trainer C. Kevin Thomas. “We’ll stake him to everything in 2006. Friday will be his 16th start this year, and it’s been kind of a long 16. I’ll have to evaluate him after this race and go from there. I’m thinking of giving him a couple of months off now. I hate to quit when he’s so good. He deserves a better mark than 1:55. Whenever he’s won, it’s been easy and he’s never been hard used.”

The son of Garland Lobell is rated the 5-2 morning line favorite in Friday night’s featured trot, leaving from post four with Ron Pierce driving. This year the trotter has five wins and three thirds for his 15 starts, banking $86,418 toward a career total of $541,103.

It has been a great ride, thus far, for Lexington-based Thomas, 48, who co-owns Justice Hall with Mary C. Katz of Lexington, Kentucky, Berto Stable of Montreal and Nathan Fink of River Edge, New Jersey.

“Hambletonian Day 2004 was probably one of the best days of my life,” said Thomas. “We were just tickled to death to be there and get a check (finishing fifth). He was also fourth in the Stanley Dancer Final, second in the Kentucky Futurity and American-National, and only missed one check in his three-year-old season. I’ve got another one that I’ll hopefully make the trip back up there with again. His name is Berto Primo. He’s a Garland Lobell colt we bought at Harrisburg last year. He wasn’t in the yearling catalogue. We only paid $14,000 for him. We raced him six times and quit with him when he was good. He’s a bigger animal than Justice Hall. I turned him out and brought him back in a couple of weeks ago. He’s gotten bigger. If he makes it, he’ll be one of the major players.”

Justice Hall brings a two-race winning streak into Friday night’s contest, including a victory on December 16, which was his first start at the Meadowlands since Hambletonian Day of 2004.

“This year we took Justice Hall to Canada because we planned on racing him in the Breeders Crown and the Maple Leaf Trot,” Thomas explained. “He started off the year real good, and we were conservative getting him tightened up. He was a fast-closing third in his first start back at Hoosier Park (on June 17). We didn’t want to rush him early, and we wanted to let him race on the end of the mile.

“In his first start in Canada (on July 1) he was good, and then he caught something up there,” he noted. “I don’t know what it was, and I still don’t know. In fact, my whole barn got it. He just had no ‘go’ and wasn’t himself. It was discouraging as hell. When we got him back to Lexington, he still wasn’t right for a start or two. We tried everything you could do. I must have pulled his blood 20 times last summer. The best we could figure is he just had no strength.

“Finally, he came back to himself a start or two before the Allerage Farm (at the Red Mile),” Thomas said. “He finished fifth in the prep (on October 1), but got caught behind Chucaro Ahijuna, who made a break down the lane and pushed us right out of it. He was a close third in the $226,000 final (on October 8). In the American-National (on November 5), he seemed pretty good warming up, but had a little puss pocket in his foot, so he wasn’t 100 percent. He’s been pretty sharp winning his last two. He likes to respond well on the end of it. If you chase him early it takes some of the sting out of him. He’ll last longer that way.”

Lifetime, Justice Hall has 11 wins, four seconds and eight thirds from 40 starts.