Wilkes-Barre, PA — The John Simpson Sr. Memorial Stakes continued on Tuesday afternoon (Oct. 21) at Pocono Downs at Mohegan Pennsylvania, with three $30,000 divisions of both the Hardie Hanover, for 3-year-old pacing fillies, and the Super Bowl, for 2-year-old male trotters.
Pocono’s all-time leading driver, George Napolitano Jr., won two of the three divisions of the Hardie Hanover, including the fastest split, a 1:51 victory with the Papi Rob Hanover miss Gigglingonthebeach. On a cool day with a stiff stretch headwind that saw only two of 14 winners have the lead at every call, Gigglingonthebeach made every call a winning one in defeating two-holer Send It Down Slim by a length for trainer Juan Cano and Hot Lead Farm, giving Gigglingonthebeach another Pocono stakes triumph to go alongside her win in the James Lynch Memorial Consolation.
Napolitano also won a Hardie Hanover split with the Captaintreacherous filly Jordanna Hanover, who set a lifetime mark of 1:52.3 despite going uncovered in a :56.1 last half. She won by two lengths over the horse on her back, Calamity Hour, for trainer Tom Fanning and Fanning Racing LLC.
A win in the Hardie Hanover meant a great deal to the trainer of the other winner, Time Of The Season, as conditioner Tim Twaddle drove Hardie Hanover to many victories in top competition for trainer John Burns during the honoree’s racing career. Time Of The Season paced a wind-aided :26.2 third quarter to go up after leader Fanville, finally getting by that game filly by the shortest stakes margin of the day, a half length, in 1:51.4 for Birnam Wood Farms.
Tyler Buter, Pocono’s leading driver, handled Time Of The Season. The six stakes were won by Napolitano, Buter, and Harrah’s Philadelphia’s leading driver, Tim Tetrick.
Buter’s win in the Super Bowl was behind the Six Pack-That Woman Hanover colt Nordic Dancer S, who moved to the lead early then set a new mark of 1:56.1 in defeating Beer In My Hand by 2-1/4 lengths for the ownership of Flygind Gaard Inc.
Nordic Dancer S is trained by Åke Svanstedt, who also sent out the top two finishers in one of the two divisions of the baby stakes taken by Tetrick. The piebald Captain Corey-Via Lattea IT colt Nebbiolo had the largest stakes winning margin of the day, 4-1/2 lengths, as he defeated Campanzia (who suffered far turn interference) for Knutsson Trotting Inc.
Tetrick and sire Captain Corey also won with Captain Jordan, the other horse to make every pole a winning one in the fastest baby trot stakes division, 1:56. Two lengths back was 56-1 long shot Storm Hanover, who rallied nicely but could not catch the Scott DiDomenico trainee, who is co-owned by Di Domenico’s Triple D Stables Inc. along with Joe Faraldo.
The next two cards of racing at Pocono, Saturday (Oct. 25) and Monday (Oct. 27), both at 1 p.m., will each feature a pair of Simpson Stakes: Saturday’s for sophomore colts, the Albatross, for pacers, and the Ayres, for trotters; and Monday’s for freshman fillies, the Davidia Hanover, for trotters, and the Razzle Hanover, for pacers. The four stakes will offer combined purses of $283,210. Free Pocono program pages are or will be available at www.phha.org.