by Ken Weingartner, Harness Racing Communications

Ken Weingartner

Freehold, NJ — Bill Wiswell attends the Hambletonian Stakes on an annual basis and this year he might be bringing a Suit And Tie to the sport’s top trotting race for 3-year-olds.

Suit And Tie, owned by Wiswell and M And L of Delaware Inc., has won three of his four most recent races as he prepares for the first of two divisions of the Pennsylvania Sire Stakes at The Meadows on Wednesday. He is the 5-2 morning line favorite in his group and will start from post seven with Corey Callahan driving for trainer John Butenschoen.

Wicker Hanover is the 3-1 choice in the second PaSS division. He will start from post eight with Andy McCarthy driving for trainer Noel Daley.

Suit And Tie enters his race off a victory in the Reynolds Memorial on July 11 at the Meadowlands. For the year, the son of Andover Hall-Warrawee Krisp has won four of eight starts and earned $118,440.

Lisa photo

Suit And Tie was a 1:54.1 winner in the Reynolds Memorial on July 11 at the Meadowlands.

“I haven’t really talked to my partners about it yet, but I guess we’ll see what he does this week and a decision will be made after that,” Wiswell said about the Hambletonian. “But probably right now it looks pretty favorable. He’s been doing pretty good, so I think we might have a shot.”

Wiswell, a 69-year-old Wisconsin resident, has never started a horse in the Hambletonian.

Last season, Suit And Tie won one of 17 races and hit the board a total of nine times while earning $49,810. He began this year with a second-place finish to Cruzado Dela Noche in a division of the Pennsylvania All Stars and earned his first triumph of the campaign three weeks later in a conditioned race at Harrah’s Philadelphia.

A victory in the Currier & Ives by a nose over Shoot The Thrill at The Meadows in June was sandwiched between two races in which Suit And Tie went off stride. Butenschoen added trotting hobbles after the second incident and also discovered an issue with a tooth that was resolved with dental work.

“He’s been racing really good,” Butenschoen said. “He’s got talent. He just kind of got himself after a few starts were he was overanxious and a little grabby and aggressive. He would just kind of get mad and throw his head and make a break.

“I decided we’d throw the trotting hobbles on him. I also had the dentist out here and found a little piece of a wolf tooth just poking through the gum and irritating him. He might have run and was getting a little grabby because we were pinching him a little bit. We got that taken out of there and he went a real good mile for us at the Meadowlands.”

Suit And Tie’s best win time this season is 1:53.2, which is 15th best among all 3-year-old male trotters.

Nigel Soult photo

Boots N Chains has won four times in 21 lifetime starts, with earnings of $180.643.

Wiswell also co-owns Hambletonian-eligible Boots N Chains, who is 6-1 on the morning line in the second PaSS division. Boots N Chains has won three of nine races this year and earned $61,114 for Wiswell, Jean Goehlen, and Eugene Schick.

A son of Yankee Glide-Celebrity Liza, Boots N Chains won a division of the Simpson Stakes last season and finished second to French Laundry in the Kindergarten Classic final.

“At the end of the year last year I would have thought he was the better of the two,” Butenschoen said. “I still think they’re pretty evenly matched. Things have just kind of fallen into place maybe better for (Suit And Tie).

“Boots N Chains cut the mile in the Currier & Ives and finished third and Suit And Tie got the trip and got up for the win. So he got all the glory. Things just haven’t gone as well, but he’s still made $61,000. By the end of the year, if he keeps staying consistent and knocking heads, he’ll make his money. He’s just a nice honest horse.”

Wiswell, in addition to his two Hambletonian-eligible trotters, has enjoyed success recently with newly crowned New Jersey Sire Stakes 2-year-old male pacing champion Ideal Rocky and Suit And Tie’s 2-year-old sister Lookin Sharp. Doug and Rosalind Paul’s M And L of Delaware finished second in last Saturday’s Crawford Farms Meadowlands Pace with Dude’s The Man.

“Right now the (Suit And Tie) ownership group is on a roll,” Butenschoen said, adding about the Hambletonian. “If they want to go for it, sure. Otherwise we might look at the Townsend Ackerman. It’s going to come down to how he races on Wednesday and how he comes out of the race. But (the Hambletonian) would be fun. If they want to go that way I’m not going to tell them no.”

Said Wiswell, “We’ll keep our fingers crossed. It’s turning out to be pretty good right now.”