Chester, PA — One of the speediest pacers anywhere, the Somebeachsomewhere 6-year-old gelding Ruthless Hanover, made his 2023 debut a successful one during Tuesday morning (March 28) qualifiers at Harrah’s Philadelphia, going wire-to-wire in 1:52.2 for driver George Napolitano Jr., trainer Tom Cancelliere, and owner John Cancelliere.

Ruthless Hanover was a three-time winner in the Graduate Series at age four, and won late-season fast-class paces right here in 2022. Of course, he is best remembered locally for his effort on Sept. 4 last year in an Invitational, where he put up supersonic fractions of :25, :51.4, and 1:19.1, then finished second behind Allywag Hanover’s 1:47.3 clocking, which equaled the all-time track record of Wiggle It Jiggleit.

Two owner/trainer/driver teams succeeded with a pair of 3-year-olds, one on each gait.

Purple Haze Stables, trainer Trond Smedshammer, and driver Joe Bongiorno were victorious with the trotting colts Sevecheetah (Chapter Seven–White Cheetah, 2:00.3) and Chapercraz (Crazy Wow–Chaperess, 1:58.3).

On the pacing side, driver Tim Tetrick and trainer Mark Harder won with a par of American Ideal fillies, Silky Stride (dam Silk Pajamas, 1:58.4) and Team Colors (dam Sir Jillian Z Tam, 1:56); both fillies are co-owned by Dean Lockhart and Wayne Carleton, with trainer Harder and Deena Frost also sharing a piece of the ownership on the former filly.

The first card of the 2023 season at Harrah’s Philadelphia is set for this Sunday (April 2), at 12:40 p.m., with the races for the opener to be drawn Wednesday morning. Program pages for all Philly cards are available at the PHHA website, as will replays of the qualifying races.