by Scott Ehrlich, publicity director, Sacramento Harness Association

Sacramento, CA — The percentages say that 3-year-olds, let alone a 3-year-old filly, who was the youngest horse in the race, shouldn’t beat older rivals, let alone some older male rivals, but no one told that to Jam And Jelly, as she got back on the winning track.

Conditioned trotters, racing for a $4,100 purse, were featured at Cal-Expo on Wednesday night (August 15), in which Jam And Jelly scored for the fifth time in her last six outings.

In advance of starting from post position four in the field of six, Lemoyne “Mooney” Svendsen knew his filly fit — as long as things worked out his way.

“I thought she had a shot, but I knew I was going to have to let the pace dictate my drive because I figured it was going to be a fast front-end — all with the hopes they’d come back to me,” said Svendsen.

Settling in fourth an eighth of a mile past the start, the sophomore lass would gap 2-1/2 lengths, thus prompting Svendsen to chase after her.

“She’s still pretty green and she’s not real good at keeping up at speed like that — specifically the :28.1 first quarter. At the quarter, I was trying to keep her as close as I possibly could while waiting for them to come back to me. And even though she gapped in the first turn, I still thought she was actually keeping up rather well, given the :28.1 first quarter.”

Closing up the gap to just one length at the 5-16th-mile pole and completely closing the gap at the half-mile marker, timed in :57.1, Svendsen was upbeat.

“At the half, I was feeling pretty good about my situation because I was already that close (six lengths) to them, plus I was starting to take a hold of the filly. As a result, I thought I had a real good chance at that time.”

With the field now 7-16ths of a mile from home, Svendsen would kick out the earplugs of the filly — with good reason.

“When Tien (Desomer) pulled in front of me with Writer, he started to make a move with his mare and I didn’t want them to get away from my horse — which is why I kicked out the plugs. When the plugs came out, she just took right off and was running over the back of Tien.”

Now racing second-over to the five-eighths-mile pole, Svendsen didn’t wait too long before moving his charge three wide.

“Writer was losing trot, so I had to move my horse three wide past the middle of the final turn. Once I tipped her, I knew I was going to go around the pack in front of me because she was just loaded.”

Quickly moving up at the three-quarter-mile pole, timed in 1:28.2, Svendsen felt even better than he felt a quarter of a mile earlier.

“I liked my chances real well because she was trotting real strong.”

Now racing first-over very late in the final turn, all while charging up, Jam And Jelly would take the lead just into the stretch while drawing clear with less than 3-16ths of a mile to go.

“As green as she is, she got out in front, but then got a little lazy, which concerned me because Irish Whiskey (Jim Lackey) was right behind me.”

With Svendsen seeing Irish Whiskey closing up on the outside, Svendsen would urge his filly, but the young lady let her pilot know how she felt about that.

“She wasn’t real appreciative of me urging her, and she kind of pinned her ears a little — which told me I better be careful as to what I was doing. So I more or less combined hand driving her while still urging her, but I wasn’t pounding on her — as I knew she wasn’t going to take that.”

With Irish Whiskey now getting much closer with a sixteenth of a mile to go, Svendsen urged his filly on more.

“I was a little concerned because Irish Whiskey kept coming, but the closer we got to the wire — the more comfortable I got with the situation because I could see we were going to hang on.”

Owned by Maurice Sigmon and Richard Reider, and trained by George Reider, Jam And Jelly would hold on to win by a diminishing neck, in 2:00.1, a lifetime best. Irish Whiskey was a clear second, and Howwilddoyawantme (Rick Plano) finished 7-1/2 lengths farther back in third.

For Richard Reider, the victory completed a consecutive owning double. For Maurice Sigmon, as well as George Reider and Svendsen, the victory was the middle portion of an owning, training, and driving triple, respectively.

“It was a pretty strong mile considering it was a 3-year-old filly facing older and tougher horses — of which several of them were boys,” Svendsen finished.

Wednesday night turned out to be a very special night for provisional driver Robert Stepien, as the 36-year-old Sergeant for the Reno, Nevada, Highway Patrol recorded not only his first career driving win, but his second career driving win as well.

Stepien would start off his memorable night with a front-end victory aboard The Gangster. If that weren’t enough, just three races later, he’d guide Boastful Hanover to a front-end triumph as well.

“It is an unbelievable feeling to not only win your first race, but to win your second race on the same night, not to mention that I own and train them both! It’s great to see the hard work come all together! I can’t thank Chris Hernandez enough for mentoring me throughout the entire process. Without Chris, I wouldn’t even be driving or training,” Stepien proudly concluded.

Live racing resumes at Cal-Expo on Thursday, August 16, continuing through Saturday. Post time on Thursday is at 6:00 p.m. (PDT). Post time on Friday and Saturday is at 6:30 p.m. On Thursday, Cal-Expo offers Fiesta Thursdays, in which fans can enjoy $2.00 frozen margaritas and tacos!

Cal-Expo offers guaranteed $10,000 pools on all Pick-4’s!