Wilkes-Barre, PA — Favorites Bond and Fashion Annie battled turning for home in a $74,435 Pennsylvania Sire Stakes event for 2-year-old trotting fillies Sunday (Aug. 21) at The Downs at Mohegan Sun Pocono. And pacesetter Bond, driven by Sarah Svanstedt, held off Fashion Annie and took a new lifetime mark of 1:54.2.

The two met in a Kindergarten Classic event the night before the Hambletonian, and Fashion Annie challenged from the pocket to catch Bond by a nose. On Sunday, Svanstedt worked Bond to the lead after a :27.1 quarter and crucially forced Fashion Annie and Tim Tetrick to tuck in third, making that filly have to cover more ground to reach Bond while Svanstedt rated middle fractions of :56.4 and 1:26.3. Fashion Annie has early and late speed, but so does Bond, who edged away late to win by a length.

Bond strode to a powerful 1:54.2 win in Pennsylvania Sire Stakes action Sunday at Pocono. Curtis Salonick photo.

Trained by Åke Svanstedt and owned by Åke Svanstedt Inc., Little E LLC and L Berg Inc., the Southwind Frank-Boccone Dolce filly Bond now has three wins and two second-place finishes in five career starts. She is the only filly in either of the Pennsylvania-sired groupings to have two victories through three preliminary rounds. As for Sarah Svanstedt, she ran her driving record at Pocono to 7-for-9 on the season.

Tetrick won the other Sire Stakes division, worth $74,035, with a daughter of Father Patrick: Vanessa J (out of Evelyn) earned her second stakes victory in four career outings, adding to her win in a Pennsylvania All-Stars race and lowering her mark to 1:56.1. Vanessa J sat in the pocket while Gina’s On Fire, stepping up off a Stallion Series win, set fractions of :27.3, :57.3 and 1:26.3, then trotted to the lead up the Pocono Pike and held off t31-1 shot Flares Ziva by a half length for owner-trainer Lucas Wallin.

Tetrick also won a $20,000 Stallion Series event, teaming up with the Southwind Frank-Cruella De Ville filly Lie In Wait, who broke her maiden in 1:57.2 for Hambletonian-winning connections Runthetable Stables and trainer Jim Campbell. A trio of Father Patrick fillies — Lindys Irishcream (1:56.3, Mark MacDonald), Jameson N Lime (1:56.4, Brady Brown) and Heaven Hanover (1:57, Matt Kakaley) — won their respective splits, as did the Donato Hanover filly Sweet On Her (1:58.3, Wilbur Yoder), who paid $48.00 to win.

Two of the Father Patrick Stallion Series winners also were taking maiden marks. They were Lindys Irishcream (dam Gin And Lindy), who closed hard off cover for a 1:56.3 victory, fastest in the Stallion races, for driver Mark MacDonald, trainer Jessica Fallon, and owners Tim Klemancic and Blake MacIntosh; and the 1:57 winner Heaven Hanover (dam Hillarmbro), driven by the meet’s leading driver Matt Kakaley, owned by S R F Stable, Rick Wahlstreet, Heights Stable, and AMG Stable Inc., and trained by Marcus Melander, who had a great weekend at Pocono with the big victories of Joviality S and Temporal Hanover a day earlier.

Pocono concludes its weekly racing action with cards on Monday (Aug. 22) and Tuesday (Aug. 23) at 1:30 p.m. On Labor Day (Monday, Sept. 5), the track will host all eight Pennsylvania Stallion Series Championship events, which boast a combined purse of $320,000. Program pages for all Pocono races are or will be available on the PHHA website.