Author: from PHHA/Pocono

Park Official and Caviart Val both swept their respective sets of three $20,000 preliminaries in the Game Of Claims Pacing Series with wins on the Saturday afternoon (March 18) card at Pocono Downs at Mohegan Pennsylvania. Both of them were also claimed for the third straight week — this time for $30,000 each in the progressively-growing tag series — and trainer Jason Brewer, who had gotten both after $27,500 claims the week before, thus lost both streaking horses coming up to the $40,000 championship next Saturday.

Give Me This Dance and Divine Art, who are in the middle of a great rivalry at the current Cal Expo meet, will get another chance to settle the score in Sunday night’s (March 19) $12,500 Alan Kirschenbaum Memorial, for pacing mares.

Freehold Raceway hosted its annual St. Patrick’s Day race Friday (March 17), with every horse in the afternoon’s third race, a $4,000 TrackMaster event for pacing mares, driven by a driver of Irish descent.

The TrackMaster Series for horses with figures of 74.25 or less is an event designed to give horses of modest talent a chance to race for some bigger purses than they might ordinarily compete for. But the winner of Friday night’s (March 17) $15,000 series final for trotters at the Meadowlands looks like a horse who could prove to be far better than modest.

Ocean Downs Racing, the Cloverleaf Standardbred Owners Association, the Maryland Standardbred Breeders and the Maryland Standardbred Race Fund hosted an exhibit at the Junior Achievement Inspire event held at the Wicomico Youth & Civic Center, in Salisbury, Md., from March 14-16.

Feeling Sweet brushed to the top and coasted to a 5-1 upset in Wednesday’s (March 15) $25,000 Mares Open Pace at Bally’s Dover.

Muscle Dynasty was amply strong in Tuesday night’s (March 14) $25,000 Open Handicap Trot at Bally’s Dover, making two moves en route to his third consecutive top-level win.