by Ken Weingartner, Harness Racing Communications

Ken Weingartner

Freehold, NJ — Mark Weaver owns more than 100 horses, among them top older pacer Foiled Again, so the assessment he offers of Here We Go Again might be surprising.

“I own a lot of horses, but I don’t know if any are as fast as him,” Weaver said. “He’s fast.”

Here We Go Again, a 4-year-old gelding pacer, is a relative newcomer to Weaver and trainer Ron Burke. Since acquiring the horse from Canadian owners in early February, Weaver and Burke have watched driver Dave Palone and Here We Go Again win six straight at The Meadows and earn $48,400. He won in 1:52.3 on March 21 to set his seasonal mark, which he equaled on April 4.

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Here We Go Again has won 10 times in 40 lifetime starts, with earnings of $146,744.

“When we got him, he couldn’t go on the front,” Weaver said. “Ronnie made some equipment changes and Palone has really helped. We’re hoping maybe he gets an invite to maybe the Dan Patch or some other races. We didn’t pay him into anything. When the stakes payments were due, we didn’t know he was going to be this good.”

Here We Go Again (Dragon Again-Odds On Jenna) wears black and gold in tribute to the hometown Pittsburgh Steelers and their fight song, “Here We Go.” The gelding is owned by Weaver’s Here We Go Again Stable, which features 41 partners, most of whom are new to racehorse ownership.

“We kind of handpicked people who weren’t involved in harness racing, but who we thought would be a good fit,” said Weaver, who had talked with Burke about starting a partnership of this nature and was spurred to action by trainer Frank Antonacci starting a group for his 2-year-old trotter Bourbon Slush last December. “Most have never owned a horse. A lot had never been to the track, but we would know them from a baseball league or soccer league with our kids. We thought this was the best way to get them involved.

“I would say 95 percent of the people we asked decided to join. It’s been great. It’s been neat. One of the owners, his daughter plays on the soccer team at Penn State, and when (Here We Go Again) races they get together and watch him. Another guy has a brother in Buffalo and his whole office watches. It’s neat to hear the stories of not only the 41 people, but it’s extended beyond them. He’s got a lot of fans out there.”

So far, Here We Go Again has raced during the daytime, when many of his owners and fans are at work, but still a good number show up for his starts.

“If we could ever get this horse in a night race, I guarantee we’d have an extra 100 or 200 people come to see this horse race,” Burke said. “And some of the (new owners) are coming to the track a few others times a week to the races. We were trying to increase attendance and interest at The Meadows on our own. This is exactly what we hoped it would be.”