Beissinger Hanover hails from sub-1:52 parents
May 12, 2004,by Dean Hoffman
Howard Beissinger’s birthday present came a little early this year.
Last Saturday his namesake colt Beissinger Hanover won the Dexter Cup, the traditional early season classic for sophomore trotters. This coming Sunday Beissinger will celebrate his 81st birthday.
World Champion Beat The Wheel is the dam of Beissinger Hanover.
A winner of three Hambletonians, Beissinger is now retired and lives in Hamilton, . He serves as a yearling selection consultant for yearling sales companies in the United States and Italy and he also assists owners in the United States with yearling selection.
Beissinger Hanover is off to a great start this season with three wins in four starts. His win in the Dexter Cup was a decided upset as favored Self Obsessed broke stride and the winner nosed out American Mike. Driver Mike Lachance drove for trainer Ron Gurfein and their colt scored a 1:57.1 wins at odds of 20-1.
If the combination of Lachance and Gurfein sounds familiar, it’s because they teamed up to campaign Self Possessed, the sire of Beissinger Hanover. Self Possessed rocketed to a world record in winning the 1999 Hambletonian in 1:51.3. His first crop, now just 3-year-olds, are making a big wave in the trotting ranks. Lachance and Gurfein also teamed up to race Self Possessed’s sire Victory Dream, the 1994 Hambo winner.
Is Beissinger Hanover another Hambo winner for Lachance and Beissinger? It’s too early to say, of course, but one colt who might voice a dissenting opinion is Cantab Hall, the unbeaten juvenile trotting champion of 2003. He is also a son of Self Possessed trained by Gurfein and driven by Lachance and he’s the obvious early favorite for the Hambletonian.
Pedigree Sire of Sire: VICTORY DREAM [ 1991 , T , 3 , 1:53.2M , $1,016,537] Sire: SELF POSSESSED [ 1996 , T , 3 , 1:51.3M , $1,346,390] Dam of Sire: FEELING GREAT [ 1988 , T , 3 , 1:57.3M , $125,379] Sire of Dam: DEFIANT YANKEE [ 1978 , T , 2 , 1:58.1M , $172,290] Dam: BEAT THE WHEEL [ 1990 , T , 4 , 1:51.4M , $303,178] 2nd Dam: BEAT THE BAND [ 1984 , T , $0]
Just as it’s natural that Gurfein and Lachance should team up with a grandson of Victory Dream and son of Self Possessed, it’s natural that the Dexter Cup winner should be named Beissinger Hanover because the Hall of Fame horseman played an important part in this pedigree.
It’s well known, of course, that Beissinger trained and drove both Speedy Crown and Speedy Somolli to their Hambletonian triumphs. They are, respectively, the great-great-great-great grandsire and the great-great-great grandsire of Beissinger Hanover.
On the female side of the pedigree, we can start in 1978 when Beissinger selected a Speedy Scot filly named Liveliness from the Castleton Farm yearling consignment. She failed to make it on the track, so Beissinger bred her to several of his former trotting stars. Her first two foals were fillies by Lindy’s Crown, the son of another Beissinger graduate Lindy’s Pride. On the track, Lindy’s Crown equaled Nevele Pride’s 1:54.4 world record in 1980, but received scant patronage as a stallion. He was exported to Sweden where he later became a champion sire.
The second Lindy’s Crown filly from Liveliness was named Beat The Band and she was bred as a 3-year-old in 1987 to Defiant Yankee, a son of Speedy Crown selected as a yearling by Beissinger and raced by him. Defiant Yankee won the Dexter Cup in 1981 on the eve of the Hambletonian, but then took sick with pneumonia and never wore harness again. That year in the very first Hambletonian contested at the Meadowlands, Beissinger sent his second-string colt Super Juan into action and won a heat. He was beaten a neck in the raceoff, leaving Beissinger to wonder what Defiant Yankee would have done if he’d been in the race. “Defiant Yankee was two seconds faster than Super Juan,” he said.
Howard Beissinger
Just Liveliness had two fillies by Lindy’s Crown, her daughter Beat The Band had two fillies by Defiant Yankee. The second one was Beat The Wheel and she was indeed something quite special. She was a top filly in the Midwest as a 2- and 3-year-old, but truly blossomed as a 4-year-old. That year she was trained by Ron Gurfein (is this beginning to sound repetitive?) and Cat Manzi was in the bike one memorable night in early July. That night Manzi positioned her on the back of Pine Chip as they looped the Meadowlands, but in the stretch Beat The Wheel came out and sailed by to win in 1:51.4, then the fastest trotting mile ever.
Beat The Wheel wasn’t always the easiest mare to handle on the track, but her potential as a broodmare was obvious. She entered the broodmare ranks at Hanover Shoe Farms and was bred in 1996 to Valley Victory. Fortunately, she conceived and carried, delivering a colt the next year named Berndt Hanover after the famous Swedish horseman Berndt Lindstedt. When he waltzed into the sale ring at Harrisburg in 1998, he sold for $400,000.
Bob McIntosh picked up the training assignment behind Berndt Hanover and the colt was a natural. He was the favorite in the 1999 Peter Haughton Memorial, but began pacing behind the gate, broke stride, and fell far behind the field. Miraculously, driver Mike Lachance rallied the colt and he trotted from last at the ¾-pole to finish third.
Later in the year, Berndt Hanover was less than perfect at times, and did things such as trying to duck out a draw gate before the start one day at Lexington.
He returned to the races as a 3-year-old and was good in his Hambletonian elimination, but broke stride in the final and never raced again.Berndt Hanover went to stud at Seelster Farm in Ontario and the reports on his 2-year-olds are very promising.
Beat The Wheel’s next foal was a Donerail filly named Lady Luck Hanover. She sold for $200,000 as a yearling, giving Hanover $600,000 from Beat The Wheel’s first two foals. Lady Luck took a 1:58.3 mark as a freshman and is now a Hanover Shoe Farms broodmare. She was bred to Self Possessed in her first season and to Malabar Man last year.
The third foal of Beat The Wheel is Beaumont Hanover, a Muscles Yankee colt who trotted in a 2:00f mark as a 2-year-old in 2002 and has been exported to Denmark.
Beissinger Hanover was only a $37,000 yearling, but being resold last summer to a partnership of Brittany Farms, James W. Simpson, Lindy Racing Stable, and Jerry Silva. Interestingly, Beissinger Hanover is a son of the only sub-1:52 trotting mare in history and he was sired by the 1:51.3 trotter Self Possessed. Is it any wonder he has speed?
Beat The Wheel has a yearling filly from the first crop by SJ’s Caviar. Her name is Believe Hanover and she was the first foal by SJ’s Caviar to be foaled as she was born on Jan. 15, 2003. Beat The Wheel was bred to Malabar Man last year, but aborted.
Beissinger Hanover’s family tree is free of repetitive crosses in his first three generations as the pillars of his pedigree are Valley Victory, Mystic Park, Speedy Crown, and Lindy’s Crown.
In Beat The Wheel, however, you get an interesting 3m x 4f cross to the mare Missile Toe. Missile Toe is found in the third generation on the male side of Beat The Wheel’s pedigree as she is the dam of Speedy Crown; Missile Toe also appears in the fourth generation on the female side of Beat The Wheel’s pedigree since Speedy Toe, the dam of Lindy’s Crown, is a sister to Speedy Crown.