Tag: Ken Weingartner

After being limited to three starts last season, Dynamite Dylan exploded on the scene at Miami Valley Raceway this month by breaking his maiden with a 1:50.4 win in the first start of his sophomore campaign and following with a victory last week in his elimination of the James K. Hackett Memorial for Ohio-sired 3-year-old male pacers. On Thursday, the homebred colt will try to make it 3-for-3 in ’23 when he faces eight rivals in the $50,000 Hackett championship.

James Witherite did not spend his life preparing to become the editor of Hoof Beats magazine. Rather, life itself readied Witherite for the role. Witherite, a 36-year-old Pennsylvania native whose interests and talents encompass not only harness racing but multiple facets of the arts, ascended to the position of editor earlier this month following a one-year stint as assistant editor. He took the helm from Kathy Parker, who joined Hoof Beats as editor in 2021 and will continue with the magazine as a contributing writer.

Some of harness racing’s top 3-year-olds of last season — Treacherous Dragon, Niki Hill, Bythemissal, Fashion Schooner, and Pretender — will begin their 4-year-old campaigns Saturday (April 22) in the first of two weekends of New Jersey Breeders Maturity races for pacers and trotters at The Meadowlands.

Quiksilvr Bluechip might not always be a joy to be around, but the trotter never ceases to bring a smile to Vic Kirby’s face. Kirby and his partners purchased Quiksilvr Bluechip near the end of his 3-year-old season for $24,000 at the Standardbred Horse Sale’s mixed sale in November 2019. Since then, the son of Credit Winner-Sea Raven has won 21 races and earned $344,202.

With a year of seasoning against the sport’s best older male pacers under his belt, Lou’s Pearlman is set to begin his 2023 campaign Saturday (April 8) in the $36,000 Open 2/Open 1 Handicap at The Meadowlands.

When a 21-year-old Yannick Gingras moved from his native Quebec to the U.S. in the summer of 2001, he had no idea what his future held. The young driver, who launched his career in 1998, arrived with 72 career wins and fewer than 400 starts. Two years later, Gingras was named the sport’s Rising Star, and his trajectory continued upward from there.

Troy Beyer is not one to keep track of his stats, preferring to wait until the end of the year to check his numbers. When the time has come to look, it’s been a pleasant sight. Two years ago, Beyer won 96 races and drove horses that earned $1.02 million in purses. He surpassed those figures last year, registering 148 victories and $1.62 million in the money column.