from the PA Fair Harness Horsemen’s Assn. Publicity Dept.

Washington PA — The rain went away from this southwestern Pennsylvania town close to The Meadows for Tuesday (Aug. 12) racing at the Washington County Fair and the famed Arden Downs oval, allowing for a full day of racing for 2-year-olds, as opposed to the previous day, when only two heats for sophomores got in.

The attention Tuesday focused on 2-year-old pacing colts, and especially three trained by “The King of the PA Fairs,” Roger Hammer, even though Hammer drove only one of them. That one would be R N Nate, a Nuclear Breeze gelding who has won his last six starts at the fairs (plus throwing in a Stallion Series victory for good measure, in 1:55.4) for breeder-owner-trainer-driver Hammer.

The circuit’s top dash-winner, Chris Shaw, deputized for Hammer on the two other horses, including the day’s (and meet’s) fastest, Given Up Terror, an altered son of Western Terror who won here in 2:01.2 for trainer Hammer, with Mississippian Chad Parker on the paperwork as the owner. This precocious youngster has been twice second in the Stallion Series and won an overnight in 1:55.4.

Those two races came among the four divisions of the PA Fair Sire Stake 2-year-old pacing colt event; driver Brady Brown and trainer Mike Gillock clicked to take the other two, with Firm It Up (2:09.1-:30.2) and Moonshine Road (2:06.3).

We talked about three Hammer colts. The third is racing in the Quaker State Stakes and Rustlercafe is now 7-6-1-0 in that series after a 2:02.2 score. Hammer is the owner/trainer/breeder of the altered son of Rustler Hanover, with Chris Shaw again in the bike.

Other highlights included Ohioan Marty Wollam capturing three races on the day, from three different trainers, including two of the three Fair Sire Stakes 2-year-old colt trot winners: the Andover Hall colt Andover Express and the SJ’s Caviar colt Itza Rube; and the recent local addition of Crist Hershberger, who had two sulky scores Wednesday and has already posted his best overall moneywinning season — and it’s only mid-August.

Mid-August means plenty of PA fair racing, and indeed the trotters and pacers will be back in action Wednesday and Thursday at Dayton, where first post is 12 noon; a recap will be posted at the end of the meet.

*****

On Tuesday, day two at the State Fair of West Virginia, it looked like a boxing slugfest out there: driver Chuck Perry won the first race, J D Wengerd the second, then Perry, then Wengerd, then Perry — so that the scorecard after the first two days reads 4-4, with three of Wengerd’s winners coming from the barn of top trainer Shane Heasley.

The SFOWV track crew again did an excellent job with the surface after more lashing with rain, and the meet’s fastest pace, 2:02.1, was put up by the veteran campaigner Spudcam, a gelded son of Camluck trained and driven by Wengerd for J M F Racing.