Wilkes-Barre, PA – Santana Hanover turned the tables on Congressional in Saturday’s afternoon (Aug. 30) $18,500 featured pace at Pocono Downs at Mohegan Pennsylvania.
Another highlight of the day was the 6,000th career driving victory of “youthful veteran” Jim Marohn Jr.
In last week’s fast-class feature, the Big Jim gelding Santana Hanover set the pace, but was caught out of the pocket by Congressional, who hasn’t gone a bad race since coming to Pocono from Kentucky.
This Saturday, both horses occupied the exact same positions much of the race, but Congressional, from the outside post eight, had been parked well past a :26.2 opener to make the top, only to see Santana Hanover move again to control the throttle and post middle fractions of :54 and 1:21.2.
After shaking off outside challengers, Santana Hanover again had Congressional poised for attack, but this week the leader was able to withstand the unrelenting late challenger by the smallest possible margin in 1:49.4.
George Napolitano Jr. had the winning drive behind the winner of $391,505 for trainer Joe Bongiorno and the partnership of JB Racing and J.R. and Collin Ryan.
A race earlier, 43-year-old Jim Marohn Jr. won for the 6,000th time in his sulky career, bringing home the Bettor’s Wish sophomore gelding Odds On Wildfire to a three-quarter length decision over Rio in a lifetime best 1:49.4 in a $17,000 pacing co-feature for developing horses. Trainer-owner Geovany Hernandez has an improving horse who has now won half his 18 sophomore starts after not racing at two.
Now there are two “Jim Marohn”s who can lay claim to winning more than 5,000 races in the sulky – Jim Jr.’s well-known father Jim Marohn Sr. recorded 5,358 sulky successes. We don’t know how many harness families have two members with more than 5,000 wins, and the matter would be very hard to research, but it’s “Odds On” that the number is very, very few.
Other sub-1:50 winners on the card were millionaire I Did It Myway, quickest of the day in 1:49.3, and Yonkers’ shipper Tobins Chester, who promptly took the program’s opener in 1:50.
Daiquiri Hanover mastered the sub-feature class for developing trotters with a half length victory over a stubborn pacesetting Kirkegaard K in 1:52.1. Pocono’s leading Tyler Buter has won two straight with the son of Bar Hopping for trainer Tony Alagna and owners Adam Hawthorne (Louisiana), Jade Hatfield (Utah), and Itzak Madae (California).
Driving doublers on the card were Buter, Anthony and George Napolitano, and Ridge Warren.
The program this Sunday (Aug. 31) will be the last card on Sunday at Pocono in the 2025 season.
Pocono’s regular schedule will become Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday at 1 p.m. On Monday, Sept. 8, crack Pennsylvania Stallion Series trotters and pacers will go after a combined $320,000 in their divisional Championship races. Free Pocono program pages are or will be available at www.phha.org.