from the PA Fair Harness Horsemen’s Association

Harrisburg, PA — Wednesday (Aug. 10) is one of two split days for the year on the Pennsylvania fair circuit, with racing at two venues (the other is Tuesday, Aug. 30, at Indiana and Wattsburg).

The 3-year-olds were featured on both cards, with the Greene County Fair in Waynesburg concluding its two-day fair meet, while the Wayne County Fair in Honesdale, having had a two-day Sire Stakes meet on Sunday and Monday, jumped right back in with the first of the two days of its fair meet (the other card starts at 1 p.m. Thursday). The action started in the morning (10 a.m. first post at Waynesburg) and ended in the evening (6 p.m. last post at Honesdale).

Honesdale

Todd Schadel took the first two opportunities on the Wednesday Honesdale card to show a filly’s “heels to the field” in track record time.

Seth Dowling photo

Real Caviar won in a track record mile of 2:02.4.

The opener saw the SJ’s Caviar trotting miss Real Caviar stop the watch in 2:02.4 after a :28.4 last quarter while reducing the 2004 divisional mark of Riann Photo by three-fifths of a second. Real Caviar, now undefeated in three fair starts, one of which was a 2:00.1 at Gratz that still stands as fastest trot of the year the fairs, was one of four Schadel winning drives on the day, and one of two winners from his barn. Dr. John Egloff is his partner on Real Caviar.

The first division of the 3-year-old filly pace was expected to be a showdown between Team Shaw’s Unbeamlieveable, who had rewritten the local track standard to 2:00.4 on Monday, and Devious Behavior, who had been undefeated in six fair outings. Trainer and owner Jason Shaw, who had three wins on the day, gave up the lines of the team’s “lesser half,” Singalongwithbing (if a filly with three prior fair wins could really be called a lesser half) and Schadel went out and defeated the marquee fillies with the daughter of Yankee Cruiser in 2:00.4, equaling Unbeamlieveable’s three-day-old track mark.

The highlights were coming thick and furious now, as in the other division of the filly pace, Hickory Pandle scored in 2:02 to give 26-year-old Zachary Kaiser his first career win as both a driver and a trainer.

Pierce won the very next race, a $2,100 free-for-all event in 1:58.4–:28, almost distancing the field. The Nick Surick-trained gelding was driven by 2015 Amateur Driver of the Year Hannah Miller, who won the award for her outstanding record driving trotters.

Other notable winners were 3-year-old colt trotter OMG Hanover (2:04–:29.1), undefeated in four fair starts this year, and 3-year-old colt pacer Star Of Terror (2:00.4), giving him six wins, the last four in a row, at the fairs.

Waynesburg

At the diagonal other corner of the state, trainer/driver Rick Beinhauer made the biggest headlines with two horses on his preferred trotting gait, the gelding Major Matter and the filly Atoastandcaviar, both of whom he owns with his wife Regina and both winners in 2:03.3.

Major Matter paraded back before the fans for the fourth time on the 2016 fair trail, in a campaign that saw the son of Explosive Matter tie the all-time track trot record at Wattsburg in 2:04 in the first week of the season. Atoastandcaviar, an SJ’s Caviar filly, notched her third win along the Keystone twicearound circuit. The Beinhauers also bred both winners.

Capturing the other of two divisions in both Sire Stakes divisions were the team of driver Steve Schoeffel, trainer Bill Daugherty Jr. and owner Susan Daugherty, matching the double they achieved on the Tuesday card here. Their sophomore wins Wednesday came with the Muscle Massive gelding Rail Kat and the Explosive Matter filly Waterview Hanover, who like the Beinhauers’ Major Matter won her Fair Championship event in 2015.

We mentioned the quickness of the two Beinhauer horses: the fastest events on the pacing side were the 2:03 win by the Art Official colt Dragon Strikes, undefeated in five fair races, and the 2:03.1 win by the Yankee Cruiser filly Madison’s Majesty, the latter giving driver Mike Micallef and trainer Angela Porfilio their first-ever PA fair wins in the USTA system.

Posting a pair of winners on the day seemed de rigeur for Waynesburg horsemen on Wednesday; two driving victories were achieved by, in addition to Beinhauer and Schoeffel, Brady Brown, James Dodson, and Shawn Johnston; also conditioning two winners in tandem with Beinhauer and Daugherty was Mike Gillock.

Steve Schoeffel had six victories in the sulky during the Waynesburg meet, doubling the total of nearest competitor Brady Brown. Bill Daugherty Jr. harnessed the four winners mentioned above to lead his column by one over Mike Gillock and Gary Johnston.