by Jerry Connors, for the Pennsylvania Harness Racing Commission
Wilkes-Barre PA — The Pocono Race Office placed the two filly finals ahead of the colt races among the four $200,000 Pennsylvania Sire Stakes Championships scheduled for Saturday (September 10) at the northeast Pennsylvania oval, and the misses put on a super speed show, setting outright one world record and equaling another for their respective divisions.
First to alter the record books was the Tom Ridge-Sand Lavender-blu trotting filly Sand Violent Blu, who quarter-moved to a lead she never relinquished, crossing the wire in 1:54.3 to lop three-fifths of a second off the old standard set by Honorable Daughter (whose driver, John Campbell, ironically was six feet from the winner’s circle during the historic mile, signing autographs. “Records are made to be broken,” Campbell offered graciously.
The filly’s driver, Brett Miller, was last seen at Pocono before Saturday faceplanted in the second turn, with broken ribs from a scary accident.
“I’m feeling much better now,” Miller said afterwards, “and driving this kind of filly certainly helps.”
He also singled out the veteran conditioner Tye Loy as a secret of the filly’s success for owner Bill Sanders.
Economy Terror, second to the vaunted American Jewel in her last two starts, regained winning form, but only after a fierce stretch duel with Destiny’s Chance and Marty Party, breaking the lightbeam in 1:51.1 to equal Fancy Filly’s world pacing mark (set in a PA Sires Championship at Chester two years ago).
A big crowd flocked to the winner’s circle to greet Economy Terror (Western Terror-Mattatonic), trainer Chris Oakes, and driver George Napolitano, Jr., who won the biggest purse of his career. Howard Taylor, co-owner of the $360,000-winning filly with Chuck Pompey and Ed Gold, said his filly’s next stops would be Lexington and the Breeders Crown — and that they are looking forward to tangling with American Jewel again.
The filly events were races 4 and 5; by race 10, the pacing colt championship, the temperature had dropped and the wind had stiffened — but that didn’t stop a 2-year-old from posting the third baby 1:51.1 of the night. This winner was the Yankee Cruiser-Sweet Future colt Sweet Lou, who blasted out from the rail and took no prisoners, holding off the late bid of Easy Again, his only conqueror in seven starts, and like his rival sent off at even money (the latter the favorite by $87).
Driving for trainer Ron Burke and the ownership combine of Burke Racing Stable, Weaver Bruscemi, Lawrence Karr, and Phillip Collura, Dave Palone knew he had the tactical advantage with Easy Again in midpack early, so “I tried to get away on the backside (:26.4),” and the strategy was also helped when Easy Again’s cover stalled at the three-quarters, and that colt had just too far to come to catch Sweet Lou and Palone.
Just as both the pacing colts and fillies went in the same time, so too did the trotters, as the homebred Broadway Hall-Idole Normand colt Stormin Normand, the only horse — 2- or 3-year-old, colt or filly, trotter or pacer, Sire Stakes or Stallion Series — to sweep his PA preliminary events, added the Sire Stakes colt championship to his campaign, now at $245,043, by tallying in 1:54.3, the same time as his distaff counterpart Sand Violent Blu and a season’s record.
Stormin Normand sat the two hole trip behind his Jim Campbell-trained, Fashion Farms LLC-homebred stablemate Pekoe Fashion, heretofore undefeated, then powered out late on the turn and powered to the fore, safely leaving Go Tapaigh and Pekoe Fashion next in line behind him.
About the choice of the colt event-sweeping driver Dave Palone, who regularly drove both his horses, Jim Campbell said that Palone “was leaning towards Stormin Normand,” and that proved a good choice despite being behind the eight-ball at pill-shake time (Palone’s fifth in eight Championship races including Chester, about which he didn’t complain a bit).
Recap of 2-year-old consolations (all for $50,000):
The Real Desire-Special Magic colt Special Forces became the fastest 2-year-old on a five-eighths-mile track this year (equaled by Economy Terror and Sweet Lou later, as described above) when he took his consolation pace in 1:51.1 in the first betting race for driver Tim Tetrick, trainer Brian Brown, and the ownership of Country Club Acres Inc., William Robinson and Mike Mallett.
The other two consolations, both for fillies, were slotted at the tail end of the 17-race (19-race if you count the early Shady Daisy events) card.
Trotters were up first, and the Broadway Hall-Hawaiian Delight filly Voluptuous Ronda — 46th in the Sire Stakes standings, the lowest-placed horse to make The Big Show at Pocono — lowered her record by two seconds in a 1:56.4 victory for driver Dave Palone and trainer Tom Haughton, the latter co-owner with Ronald Barnhard.
So Easy Baby certainly lived up to her name as she won the filly pace by a country mile in 1:53, a new speed badge by two full seconds, for driver Andrew McCarthy, trainer Erv Miller and owners Andray Farms. The winner is a daighter of McArdle-So Easy.