from the Pennsylvania Fair Harness Horsemen’s Association’s publicity office

Gratz, PA — Seeing that next month will be the 10th anniversary of Vivid Photo’s winning of the Hambletonian, it seems correct that his owners, Roger Hammer and hometown hero Todd Schadel, would tie atop the horsemen’s standings for the Saturday/Sunday Pennsylvania Fair Sire Stakes action here at the central Pennsylvania Gratz oval, perhaps the local circuit’s fastest, with four wins each as trainer and driver.

Seth Dowling photo

Keystone I Wish was a 1:58.1 winner.

Schadel posted the fastest mile of the young Keystone fair season, 1:58.1, with the Art Official filly Keystone I Wish, last year’s 2-year-old pacing filly Fair championship winner, whom he owns with his wife Christine.

Another highlight for Todd came when he swept the 2-year-old trotting filly divisions in the first two races of the meet, with the Explosive Matter miss Shine On, home in 2:03.3 for Todd and Christine, and Connie Jean, a Cantab Hall miss who clocked in 2:03 for Charles Keller III, Charles Keller IV, E. Dan Bittle, and Brett Bittle.

Keystone I Wish and Connie Jean, like their fellow six horses who were the fastest divisional winner in their respective Gratz events, also became PA Fairs season’s leaders in notching their winning clockings.

Hammer’s highlight was the 1:59.4 victory with the 2-year-old pacing gelding Billy’s Falcon, who in his only other fair start went 2:00.1 at Bloomsburg. The Nuclear Breeze gelding is owned by Hammer, as were his other three weekend winners, giving him 16 victories in just six fairs as both trainer and driver, leading both sets of statistics.

The other sub-2:00 mile of the weekend was notched by Royaltyhasarrived, a sophomore Western Breeze gelding who had set a divisional track record at Butler in his last start. On Sunday he covered the Gratz twicearound in 1:59.1 for driver Brady Brown, trainer Steve Schoeffel, and owners Virginia and Kathy Schoeffel and Michael Munn.

Special mention must be made of two drivers named Brandon, especially Brandon Givens, who had been away from the races for more than five years putting his life back together. Now working for fellow “comeback kid” Kevin Lare, Brandon, a career winner of more than 1,000 races who had not driven for 1,917 days, fashioned a sulky triple on Saturday, two of them for trainer Lare.

The other Brandon, Brandon Henley, made his first Pennsylvania fair appearance Sunday; in fact, it was the first time he had raced at a fair since the very first start of his career, in the summer of 2010 at The Great Pocomoke City (MD) Fair. He was also quick to find the winner’s circle, rounding out the weekend’s action by guiding the Tom Ridge 3-year-old trotting gelding Oregon Ridge to a 2:04 victory for lessee/trainer Syl King Jr.