by Joshua Potts, USTA Web Newsroom Senior Correspondent

Springfield, IL — Some wins are bigger than others. After ten races as a freshman last year, Froggy Turner stepped onto Balmoral Park’s one mile oval on Saturday, September 15, with five wins and $21,685 in earnings. Not bad at all.

That same night, 1:52.1 after the starter yelled, “Go!,” the colt pacer won his sixth race of the season and an additional $120,150, increasing his earnings almost seven-fold.

Wow. What a difference a race makes.

Balmoral Park photo

Froggy Turner (#8) held-off stablemate Jolly Lester (#10) at the wire in the $270,000 Orange & Blue final.

Of course, the race in question was no ordinary race. As part of Balmoral Park’s annual Super Night for Illinois-bred trotters and pacers, Froggy Turner won the $270,000 Orange & Blue Championship, and set a new lifetime mark in the process.

Bred by Benita Simmons and owned by Sandra Dyer, Carol Rieken, James Stieren, and Luke Gaule, the large bay colt is a son of Cole Muffler, out of the Incredible Finale mare Snitch. He finished the season with a record of 14-7-3-1 and $154,590 in the bank.

Froggy Turner won five of his first seven races, with most of those wins coming on the county fair circuit. After his fourth place effort in the State Fair Colt Stakes final in Springfield on August 17, Froggy Turner’s next race was his second place finish in an Orange & Blue elimination on September 8.

“He’s a good eater,” said Tom Simmons, who handles training chores for the colt. “He’s an eatin’ son-of-a-gun. That’s part of why he bounced back (after the layoff).”

The Orange & Blue final was particularly nice for the veteran trainer. Not only did Froggy Turner win, but another charge, Jolly Lester, completed a Simmons-trained exacta by finishing a neck behind the victor.

In addition to his win in the Orange & Blue final, Froggy Turner also won his Cardinal elimination at Maywood Park. He came in fifth, however, in the $60,100 Cardinal final, due in large part to the tough trip he got behind a breaker.

The colt’s success up to this point doesn’t surprise his conditioner.

“I liked him right off the bat,” said Simmons. “He had good size, good gait. Yeah, I liked him right off the bat.”

Simmons wasn’t the only one to like Froggy Turner during his 2007 campaign. As his season progressed, more and more bettors liked him too. Also, it is safe to say that many harness racing fans liked his name. Of course, there’s a story about how the pacer was tagged with it.

“About twenty-some years ago, one of the owners had an old horse he used to rope off of and race barrels with,” said Simmons. “Froggy Turner was his old roping horse’s name.”

And Froggy Turner has plenty of talent to go with that catchy name.

“His win at Maywood (in the Cardinal elim) tied a national season’s mark at the time,” said the trainer. “He can handle the turns on any size track. He’s pretty agile.

“He’s a big ol’ colt. He’s gonna be a big horse, probably 16.1 or 16.2 (hands). He wears two poles and a big, sloppy hobble. Not many tricks with him.”

Around the barn, Froggy Turner can apparently be a handful as well.

“He’s quite the character,” said Simmons. “He’s a little aggressive around the barn. Being a colt, he might bite and play. But yeah, he’s quite the character.”

Division honors for the 2008 Illinois-bred sophomore pacing set should be a wide open affair. As a result, harness racing fans throughout the Prairie State can look forward to watching Froggy Turner, the character with the funny name, compete with several other good 3-year-olds throughout the entire season.