Grove City, OH – Freshman male pacers get their 2025 Buckeye Stallion Series schedule underway with the opening leg on Saturday (July 19) at MGM Northfield Park.
Saturday’s 16-race card features seven $20,000 divisions of the BSS with 55 total entries.
Eleven trainers have multiple entries led by Virgil Morgan Jr. with eight. Scott Cox, Brian Georges, Ronnie Gillespie, Todd Luther, and Jessica McCown have three each to go with two apiece for Ron Burke, Kayne Kauffman, Jeff Nisonger, Logan Rowe, and Rosy Weaver.
Morgan Jr. trainee Odds On Phil (Aaron Merriman) is the early 6-5 favorite in the second division and will leave from post two alongside 3-1 second choice Dragons Shadow (Justin Irvine) on the rail. Odds On Phil won his lone prior start this season, finishing in 1:54.2 at Eldorado Scioto Downs on July 5. The Lather Up colt is owned by Odds On Racing. Dragons Shadow has hit the board once in two seasonal starts, finishing second.
Elsewhere, three sons of Catch The Fire – Catch My Dragon, Ain’t No Fire, and Myboypank – are morning-line favorites in their respective divisions.
Catch My Dragon (Trevor Smith) is the 8-5 favorite in the first division with Maga Dragon (Kurt Sugg) and Mikey Da Moose (Luke Ebersole) sharing 5-1 odds as co-second choice. Catch My Dragon finished third in a July 5 race at Scioto in his lone prior start this season. Trained by Jeff Smith, his lifetime best of 1:55.3 came in a qualifier at Scioto on July 14. He is owned by John Van Horn. Mikey Da Moose has hit the board in all four starts this season with one win, two seconds, and one third. Maga Dragon has one second-place finish in two seasonal starts.
Ain’t No Fire (Ronnie Wrenn Jr.) is the 2-1 favorite in the fifth division and will start from post seven in the eight-horse field. The Thomas Litt trainee has hit the board in all three starts this season with two wins and one second. He won at Ottawa on June 25 and added a victory in a lifetime-best 1:56 at Northfield on July 2. Wrenn Jr. will be his fourth different driver in a purse start this season. He is owned by CT Stables, John Ackley, HK&M Racing, and Strange Rinehart Racing. Sunnys In The Sea (Trevor Smith), who posted a runner-up finish in his lone prior start this season, is the 7-2 second choice in this division.
Myboypank (Gillespie) is the 2-1 favorite in the sixth division with 5-2 second-choice Zumma World (Greg Grismore). A Gillespie trainee, Myboypank is 2-for-2 this season with wins at Paulding on June 10 and Scioto Downs on July 12, which came in a lifetime-best 1:53.1. He is owned by Sam Bowie. Zumma World has won all three of his starts in 2025 and has a lifetime best of 1:57, which came in a qualifier at Scioto on June 16.
Cipher (Wrenn Jr.) enters as the 8-5 morning-line favorite in the third division and will leave from the rail. Trained by Brian Brown, the Downbytheseaside gelding won his lone prior start of 2025, getting a victory at The Meadows on July 12 in 1:54.3. He is owned by Roy Thacker Jr., William Johnson II, Rich Lombardo Racing, and VIP Internet Stable. Highest Honors (Merriman), the 5-2 second choice, has hit the board in two of three seasonal starts with one second and one third. He is coming off a seventh-place finish in the $150,000 Next Generation for colt pacers at Scioto on July 5.
Irvine will drive Bay Camo and Ourcoltofmanycolor as the early favorites in the remaining two divisions.
Bay Camo has 3-1 morning-line odds in the fourth division and will leave from the rail. Ati Kiss My Hocks (Trevor Smith) and The Ebony Dragon (Austin Hanners) share 7-2 odds as co-second choice and will leave from post two and three, respectively. The Tye Loy-trained Bay Camo placed second in his lone prior start this season. The Well Said gelding is owned by John Froelich. The Ebony Dragon is 6-for-6 in 2025, and Ati Kiss My Hocks has one runner-up finish in two seasonal starts.
Ourcoltofmanycolor opened with 7-2 odds in the seventh division and will leave from the rail next to 4-1 second choice Odds On Mase in post two. The Nisonger trainee has hit the board in all four starts this season with two wins, one second, and one third. His wins have come in each of his last two starts, at Wilmington in a lifetime-best 1:58.3 on July 8 and at Lebanon in 1:59.1 on July 14. The gelded son of Fool Me Once is owned by CIS Racing. Odds On Mase will be making his first purse start. His personal best of 1:56.4 came in a qualifier at Scioto on July 7.
First-race post time at MGM Northfield Park on Saturday is 6 p.m. (EDT).