by Kimberly A. Rinker, for Maywood Park

Melrose Park, IL — Stablemates Earndawg and King Of The Swamp head up a field of seven freshman pacing colts and geldings in Friday’s (Oct. 17) $57,100 Abe Lincoln Stake at Maywood Park, and these two have a lot in common.

Both are trained by Roger Welch and both are by top Illinois sire Sportsmaster. As well, both are owned by William C. (Bo) DeLong and William (Pat) DeLong, with Earndawg also being co-owned by EJ Miller.

Both were purchased by Bo and Pat and taken to their Wisconsin farm to be broken and trained over the winter, before bringing them to Welch to prepare for their freshman summer contests.

Both have started 13 times in 2014 and both have competed against one another in eight contests, with Earndawg finishing higher than King Of The Swamp on six occasions. And Earndawg has clearly surpassed King Of The Swamp in regards to earnings ($160,715 vs. $65,653) and wins (five vs. three).

Last week the pair competed in the $86,000 American-National 2-year-old colt pace, with Earndawg second and King Of The Swamp fifth. The week before they finished one-two (Earndawg-King Of The Swamp) in the $43,350 Cardinal Stake at Maywood. Earndawg captured the $186,000 Orange & Blue Colt Pace on Super Night in a career best 1:52.4, with King Of The Swamp fifth in that event.

But despite their racing abilities, both of these youngsters are equally important in the eyes of their trainer, Roger Welch, and both have very different personalities.

REB photo

Earndawg, pictured here cruising to an easy win in the Cardinal Stake at Maywood Park, will look to continue a very successful freshman campaign when he goes postward in Friday’s Abe Lincoln Stake.

“Earndawg initially was very spooky — he was scared to death of everything and it took a lot of work to get him to go around the track and pace a flat mile,” Welch said.

Purchased for $35,000 at the 2013 Walker Sale, Earndawg wears a blind bridle with an elaborately-designed fly screen to help keep him calm. Welch jogged and trained the nervous gelding behind another horse every time he went to the track in the beginning, to get him used to sounds and dirt thrown up in his face.

Earndawg is out of the Western Hanover mare Pacific Sister K 4,1:54 ($107,550) and is a full brother to Mystical MJ p,1:51.1 ($275,219) and a half-brother to Doubleshotascotch p,4,1:51f ($692,491).

King Of The Swamp, an $85,000 yearling from the 2013 Walker Sale, is out of the Broadway Express mare She’s Redhot and won both his $10,000 Mini Me elimination and the $48,000 final in 1:55 on July 26.

“King is easy going in the barn and that’s his attitude on the track, too,” Welch stressed. “He’s a very handy horse. He can leave like a rocket and then sit in a hole with just two fingers.”

King Of The Swamp’s dam, She’s Redhot, finished on the board in Super Night championships at both 2 and 3. His granddam, Fox Valley Redhot, won the 1989 Orange & Blue Filly Pace. His full brother, Hot N Sporty p,2,1:50.2, a 34-race winner of $519,769, won an Orange & Blue elimination; his half-sister She’s So Hot earned $238,501 with a 2-year-old mark of 1:51.1 and was third in both her Orange & Blue elimination and final.