Free-Legged: A hot time at the old track
October 10, 2007,by Dean A. Hoffman
Dean Hoffman Columbus, OH —
With temps in the 90s, racing fans were standing in the shadows while Donato Hanover put his rivals in the shadows with yet another easy-does-it win in the meet’s signature event.
I was interviewed on satellite radio prior to the race and was asked if going two heats for the first time in his life would bother Donato. I immediately dismissed that notion. Nothing seems to bother him, and I knew heats certainly wouldn’t. A good horseman told me that every horse he had in years past could go the second heat of a race faster than the first heat, and Donato validated that viewpoint by trotting a second faster in the wrap-up heat.
It’s obvious that Donato has speed — the 1:50.1 clocking on the timer proves that — but even more amazing is his zen-like comportment in a race. I think Donato could trot around a track laced with land mines and barbed wire while artillery shells were bursting about him and never even lift his nose. In a race he keeps his mind on business and his eye on the prize. His record shows that.
People like to interject drama into a race. Nobody wants to watch a walkover. Before the Hambletonian, Pampered Princess and Adrian Chip were going to test Donato, people said. Pampered Princess tried and paid the price.
In the Canadian Trotting Classic, Pampered Princess took another shot at him along with the unbeaten Val Taurus. Again the filly was no match and Val Taurus stood on his ear leaving.
In the Futurity, those two were back again along with Green Day. We all know the result.
Donato almost got upstaged when Giant Diablo trotted the fastest mile in history in the sixth race of the day. While Vivid Photo rocketed to the front and Corleone Kosmos came to call on the outside, young Swedish driving ace Johan Untersteiner was as cool as an autumn day in Scandinavia. But when he asked Giant Diablo to trot she got the message and charged to the wire in 1:50.1. Giant Diablo also got a huge ovation from the crowd as trainer Roger Walmann and team were ecstatic.
What a moment for the 23-year-old Untersteiner. It’s his first drive in the United States and his horse trots the fastest mile in history. How can he top that?
And, by the way, wouldn’t you love to have a foal sired by Donato Hanover out of Giant Diablo? The foal would have a speed inheritance of 1:50.1. That’s not too much to live up to, is it?
After the Futurity, I stopped at Millstream Farm north of Lexington for a soiree sponsored by Claudean Cone and daughter Christine. It was truly an international gathering with people from perhaps a half-dozen countries.
There was Erkki Laakkonen, sole owner of Andover Hall. And there were the Saccomani brothers from Quebec, better known as “the Garland Lobell boys” because of their ownership of that great stallion. “It’s been like a fairy tale,” one of them told me about their association with Garland Lobell.
Per Eriksson, the remarkable Swedish-born horseman who made such an impact on American trotting from 1985-2000 was also among the guests.
“You don’t look old enough to be a legend,” Claudean told Eriksson, who is now 46.
I said, “But he is indeed a legend, and has been a legend for 15 years.”
With Eriksson was Karl-Erik Bender. He owned Alf Palema, the 1992 Hambo winner and now a supersire in Sweden. Eriksson sent out Alf Palema and Hambo runner-up King Conch, the first two finishers, in that ’92 Hambo.
It was his third Hambletonian winner as a trainer — all before he celebrated his 32nd birthday. No trainer in trotting history has come close to matching that record.
Eriksson not only won three Hambletonians, but he also won numerous Breeders Crowns, a couple Kentucky Futurities, World Trotting Derbys, etc. You’d never know it by Per’s modest demeanor, but he might be the greatest trotting trainer ever in American harness racing.
He’s now training a dozen head in Sweden, preferring to raise his family in his native country. Eriksson made a MacArthur-like statement about his future on Saturday — “I will be back.” He plans to return to American racing when his children are grown and on their own.
It was another extraordinary day in the Bluegrass.