by Jerry Connors, for the PA Harness Racing Commission

Wattsburg, PA — She’salilfireball certainly lived up to her name as she scorched the Wattsburg track at the Erie County Fairgrounds Sunday for a PA Fair Sire Stakes victory in 2:00.3, the all-time fastest mile over the Wattsburg twicearound, on a day devoted to sophomore stakes action.

Ryan Zidek photo

She’salilfireball scored in 2:00.3, an all-age track record.

A wire-to-wire winner in 1:51.4 at The Meadows two starts back, and victorious in the Fair Sire Stakes Championship at two, the daughter of Allamerican Native was a proven quality horse, but her manner of defeating a talented field, posting fractions of :29.2, 1:00.2 and 1:29.4, then drawing off while in hand late to win by 6-1/2 lengths, showed that the small but scrappy miss may have even better things in front of her.

Her 22-year-old driver, Aaron Johnston, is also to be commended for not taxing his filly in pursuit of knocking a tick or two further off the mark, knowing that his charge has a long, and likely lucrative, season ahead of her.

Robert Grover is the owner and trainer of the new Wattsburg champion, whose time shaved two ticks off the all-time, all-age local mark set by the sophomore pacing colt Straight Character in 2010.

It also easily bested the local record for sophomore fillies of 2:02.4 which had been set only 45 minutes earlier, as Have More Wine had paced that fast to reduce Caramel Chinno’s 2011 clocking by four-fifths of a second. Steve Schoeffel deftly guided the daughter of Western Terror from post six on a four-wide track to the lead before the opening eighth and rolled along to win nicely for Steve’s wife Kathy, his mom Virginia, and partners James Reuther and James Nelson.

It was part of a moster weekend for Steve Schoeffel. Imagine, as a trainer, having a weekend when you went 13-10-0-3 (.846 UTR) and you drove them all and had a catch-driving victory, too! That’s starting the season hot. One Schoeffel horse didn’t get a check, but it took a bee sting, and his subsequent scratching, to stop the blue and gold juggernaut.

Team Schoeffel’s females didn’t miss a beat, either, as for the Saturday/Sunday weekend, Steve’s wife Kathy and mother Virginia each had a share of ownership in nine of the winners! And the Schoeffels, importantly, involve many others in the sport, too, as the basic wife-mother core had no fewer than 14 different owners with a piece of at least one horse. On Father’s Day, patriarch Terry must have had a proud smile for the exploits of his family from his view at the Fairgrounds in the Sky.

It’s kind of tough to have five winners on opening weekend of the fair and be a bit eclipsed, but Dave Brickell’s smile coming back to Victory Lane pierced the eclipse that many times, two times Sunday behind 2012 divisional point champions that he owns, trains and drives: trotting gelding Bsmaximummoondream (winningest baby diamondgaited male of 2012) and pacing filly DVC Jaded Attitude.

Finishing Lines: The action next moves to the Crawford County Fairgrounds in Meadville this coming Saturday and Sunday; the draw is on Thursday, and please note for entries to use 724.695.0726 instead of the circulated 814.333.1233 number that is available only during fair week…Western Terror had the most siring credits over the weekend with five…A tip of the cap to Wattsburg trackman Alton Phillips, relatively new to the surface maintenance game, who had his oval shake off the effect of hard rains earlier in the week to be just perfect throughout the weekend.