by Karsten Bonsdorf, USTA web newsroom correspondent

Week number 33 of 2012 will go down in Swedish harness racing history as the week of Stefan Melander.

The trainer, driver and world renowned photographer dominated three of the biggest stakes races of the season during the week.

First Melander won the Jubilee Prize this past Wednesday at Solvalla behind Friction and then he followed up in the E3-finals — a stakes race for 3-year-old trotters raced on the weekend at Gävle.

In the filly division, Melander was behind the favorite System Performance (by Scarlet Knight), who had settle for second place behind the outsider Mousse (by Gallant Baron), driven by Ôrjan Kihlström, who came from behind to win in a new Swedish record for 3-year-old fillies of 1:55f.

That wasn’t too bad as Mousse is trained by Catarina Lundström — Melander’s spouse!

In the open class, Melander won by driving Standout (by Ganymede) in a new Swedish record of 1:54f.

The purse for the winner in those two races was $120,000 each and during the week trotters from the Melander/Lundström stables earned a total of close to $600,000.

Standout is a full brother to Open class trotter Oracle and they were both bred by Carl Christian Junge, who for several years was general manager at the ACL Farm in Kentucky. He is now retired and lives in Denmark.