Wilkes-Barre, PA — Chapolier has now won every one of his nine 2025 starts at Pocono Downs at Mohegan Pennsylvania, making a hard trip from the outside post eight look easy as he won Tuesday (May 6) in 1:54.3 over a track rated sloppy.
Tyler Buter, the track’s leading driver, saw the many of the usual prospective opportunists leaving quickly inside him and settled the Chapter Seven gelding in fourth. Meanwhile, MacMorris Hanover, favored in last week’s Game Of Claims final but this week 21-1 from post seven, hustled to the top in :27.4 and then got a breather to the :57.4 half, at which point Chapolier and Buter went into grinding mode. The pair drew closer to the leader while covering his own third quarter in :27.3, reaching the three-quarters just a neck behind as the timer flashed in 1:26.1, with In My Dreams hoping for some luck from the pocket.
But Buter just kept feeding his horse racetrack and Chapolier just kept gobbling it up, narrowing the margin to a head at the stretch call and then drawing off seemingly effortlessly to win by 2-3/4 lengths, with In My Dreams another length back in third. The top three finishers were all claimed out of the feature, for a total outlay for the trio of $85,000.
Chapolier has now been claimed seven times during his winning streak, showing amazing adaptability to constantly-changing surroundings (five different trainers in all). Three times he has been haltered and then raced by P T Stable and trainer Hunter Oakes, and he earned them $24,000 in his three wins, plus $5,000 extra as he elevated in price. Chapolier now goes back to owner Rocco Stebbins, from whom P T Stable and Oakes took him in his previous start; the horse has earned $70,000 in purses between Feb. 17 and May 6 at Pocono.
Buter also won the day’s co-feature, a $15,000 claiming handicap trot for horses just below the feature prices. He rallied 10-1 shot Rose Run Elegant, a Rose Run Hooligan gelding who won in 1:54.4 over a fast track for trainer Susan Marshall, who shares ownership with John Marshall. Buter, who had three victories in all on Tuesday, completed the four-day week at Pocono with 14 trips to the winner’s circle.
On Tuesday, though, he took a back seat to three-time defending Pocono driving champion Matt Kakaley, who brought home six winners, including four in a row mid-card over three different ratings in surface as the rain came in. The first five Kakaley wins were each for different trainers while the sixth was his second collaboration with Travis Alexander, the only trainer to win two races on the day.
Racing at Pocono resumes on Saturday (May 10) at 1 p.m., and the card will mark the start of the local stakes season for the best Pennsylvania-sired horses as five $30,000 Pennsylvania All-Stars divisions of the “glamour boys,” the 3-year-old pacing colts, kick off the local 2025 program. There will also be a superfecta carryover of $3,015 in the first race. Free Pocono program pages are or will be available at www.phha.org.