Hightstown, NJ – When trainer Chris Beaver took a look at the field for Saturday’s (Oct. 3) $250,000 Grade 2 Dayton Trotting Derby, which features seven horses with at least $1 million in career earnings and four with lifetime marks of 1:49.3 or faster, he reached a simple conclusion.
“I don’t think it could be any tougher,” Beaver said, with a laugh. “Every good horse I could think of entered, pretty much. It might as well be the final of the Breeders Crown, it looks like to me. They definitely got a full field of good horses in that race.”
The Dayton Trotting Derby, one of four $250,000 graded stakes on Saturday’s card at Hollywood Dayton Raceway, features the sport’s No. 1-ranked horse in Super Chapter, the No. 3-ranked horse in On To Norway, the 2025 Dan Patch Trotter of the Year (and the race’s defending champion) Lexus Kody, and 2025 O’Brien divisional award-winner Emoticon Legacy. Seven of the eight richest older male trotters this year are in the nine-horse field.
Super Chapter is the even-money morning-line favorite. The 4-year-old son of Chapter Seven-Lifetime Pursuit enters with four straight wins, including the $1 million MGM Yonkers International Trot, $446,400 Maple Leaf Trot final, and $281,200 John Cashman Memorial – all Grade 1 events. A Dan Patch Award divisional champ last, he has earned $2.82 million lifetime. He will leave from post 4 with Dexter Dunn driving for trainer Marcus Melander.
Beaver’s entry in the race is Gimpanzee Dancer, who might not do the quickstep, but still can hoof it on the big stage. He has earned $356,925 this season, third best among all older trotters, and heads to the event off a second-place finish behind On To Norway in the $200,000 Caesars Trotting Classic (G2) last week at Harrah’s Hoosier Park. He will leave from post 6 with driver David Miller and is 8-1 on the morning line.
The 4-year-old son of Gimpanzee-Weslynn Dancer has hit the board in 13 of 16 races this year, winning eight, including two Kentucky Sire Stakes finals for 4-year-old trotters at Oak Grove. For his career, he has won 14 times, earned a paycheck in 40 of 45 starts, and banked $724,467 for owners Beaver, Carolina Acosta, and Derek Ivany.
“He really is a good horse,” Beaver said. “He doesn’t have the tactical speed that always puts him in the right position, but he can go with them. If a race sets up for him where he doesn’t have to sprint the first quarter or the last quarter to be involved, he can be there with them. Some of them can just trot a faster fraction than he can, that’s what it comes down to. He’s a grinder, but he makes a lot of money grinding.”
Gimpanzee Dancer started his 4-year-old campaign by posting two wins and a second-place finish in conditioned races at Miami Valley Raceway, then had five victories and two seconds in seven Kentucky Sire Stakes starts at Oak Grove.
“What has helped him a lot as a 4-year-old was all those Kentucky races,” Beaver said. “He pretty much walked through those races, and that really helped. But what I’ve been looking for is for him to step up and race well against the top horses, and I thought he did in his last start at Hoosier.
“I’ve seen him getting better. The family is that way. His mother got better with age, and I’ve had sisters to his mother that were the same; they always seemed to get better as they got older.”
Saturday’s card at Dayton also includes the Dayton Pacing Derby, Dayton Distaff Derby, and Dayton Oaks Derby – all Grade 1 stakes.
Prince Hal Hanover (driver Todd McCarthy, post 2, 2-1), Best Chip (Joe Bongiorno, post 9, 3-1) and Ken Hanover (Tim Tetrick, post 1, 9-2) are the top choices in the Dayton Pacing Derby. The field also includes defending champion Ervin Hanover.
The 5-2 morning-line choice in the Dayton Oaks Derby, for trotting mares, is Warrawee Michelle, who won the Miss Versatility Series final (G3) last week at the Delaware County Fair in Ohio. She will leave from post 5 with trainer/driver Åke Svanstedt.
In the Dayton Distaff Derby, for pacing mares, two-time defending champ Twin B Joe Fresh is the 2-1 morning-line favorite and will leave from post 6 with Dunn in the sulky.
Racing begins at 6:30 p.m. (EDT) at Hollywood Dayton Raceway and the graded stakes are races 10 through 13. For Saturday’s free program, which also includes eight Buckeye Stallion Series championships, click here.
Live racing daily programs can be found at the Hollywood Dayton website here.