by Rich Fisher, for Meadowlands Media Relations Department

Rich Fisher

Trenton, NJ — A once-in-a-lifetime experience has doubled itself to twice-in-a-lifetime.

For the second straight year, owner Richard Gutnick and trainer Linda Toscano have teamed to get a horse into the $1.5 million Hambletonian final at the Meadowlands Racetrack, as Market Share won his elimination race in 1:52.2 last Saturday night.

In recording the fastest time of the three eliminations, Market Share and driver Tim Tetrick won by 2-1/4 lengths over Archangel, while Gym Landry also advanced in third place. CBS Sports Network will air the Hambletonian final from 3:30-5 p.m. Saturday.

Last year, Gutnick and Toscano went to the Hambletonian with Chapter Seven, who finished fourth in the final.

“I was very disappointed last year because I thought Chapter Seven was the best horse, but he had all sorts of (health) problems,” Gutnick said. “If you had asked me last year, I said it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

“I never expected to have one again in my lifetime. To have one (in the race) two years in a row is incredible.”

USTA/Ken Weingartner photo

Market Share enters the Hambletonian with $222,505 in lifetime earnings.

A year ago, Market Share — a son of Revenue S-Classical Flirt who was purchased for $16,000 at the Lexington Selected Sale — won all five of his starts, but they were all on the small half-mile oval at Freehold Raceway. Unaware of how he would perform on the bigger tracks, Gutnick wasn’t making any advance plans for the Meadowlands this weekend.

But when Market Share won a division of the New Jersey Sire Stakes at the Meadowlands earlier this year before finishing third in the final, the owner and trainer began to think big.

“We didn’t know how he would do on a mile track until he finally got up here (to the Meadowlands) and had a qualifier, and he took to it,” Gutnick said. “Then we didn’t know if he’d have the turn of speed or the closing kick, and it turns out he does. Much better than I ever thought he would have.

“Linda said ‘You’ve got to stake him to everything; you don’t know how good he’ll be.’ (Last year) if you would have asked me if I’d be putting him in the Hambletonian, I’d have said the odds were about 100-1 against.”

Those odds improved as this season progressed as Market Share has won four of 10 races and earned $186,255. Aside from the sire stakes division, he won the elimination for the Dexter Cup and was seventh in the final; won his elimination for the Goodtimes Stakes and was fifth in the final; and was third in the Yonkers Trot.

In his Hambletonian elim, Market Share followed Archangel from second place before taking the lead in the stretch and finishing with a :27.1 last quarter-mile.

“It was kind of a scramble there at the first turn,” said Tetrick, referring to a battle to his outside between favorite Little Brown Fox and Archangel. “(They) were fighting for position pretty good and then (Little Brown Fox) made a break and (Archangel) made the front and it worked out pretty good.

“I felt super,” added Tetrick, who will start his sixth Hambletonian and was second in 2008 with Crazed. “We got a third-quarter breather and turning from home, I pulled the right line and went and Linda had him ready and he did the rest by himself.”

Toscano, who is bidding to become the first female trainer to win the Hambletonian, felt it was Market Share’s kind of race.

“He needs the trip,” she said. “He doesn’t really love the front end; but he loves to chase down a target and tonight it worked out as well.”

Gutnick, who is the CFO of a medical supply company in the Philadelphia suburbs, said the horse’s elimination trip was typical of his success.

“He’s a very solid horse and always gives 100 percent,” the owner said. “Once he gets a trip and targets a horse, he does it on his own. He’s very game. I’m very pleased with him.

“He has such an attitude about him that he wants to do it. You start knowing that he’s honest and he’s always going to give it a try.”

Unfortunately for Gutnick, his tries have come up short in finals this year after winning eliminations. This would certainly be the right race to reverse that trend.

“We’ve won a lot of eliminations this year,” Gutnick said. “In the Dexter Cup final he threw a shoe. We need a little bit of luck. We’re one of about half a dozen who could win that final.

“It’s going to be nerve-wracking (this week) because I have the Nat Ray (with Chapter Seven) and I have the Hambletonian. I would love to win both of them, but it will depend on what the racing gods do.”

Regardless of what happens Toscano and Gutnick are living out a fantasy with consecutive trips to the Hambletonian final.

“I think it’s like a blur,” Toscano said. “I don’t even remember last year and the thought of having this horse back and getting another shot at it, it’s like a dream come true. It’s what we do this for. It’s an impossible dream.”

Correction: It was an impossible dream.

It is now a twice-in-a-lifetime accomplishment.