by Greg Peck

Trainer Greg Peck is campaigning Muscle Hill, a 3-year-old trotting colt who won the Hambletonian in stakes-record time of 1:50.1. Peck drove the colt to win a qualifier in 1:56.2 at The Red Mile on Friday, August 21, and he is preparing for the American-National at Balmoral Park this Saturday evening.

Greg Peck

I hadn’t driven him since his first baby race. It was quite an interesting drive, he does have that alertness, awareness, acceleration that Brian (regular driver Sears) says he has. It had rained hard the night before and so it was muggy in the morning. Dan Coon (track superintendent) was there and even though they don’t work the track this time of year, it seems the influence was there. I talked to him before the races and suggested to him and the judges they delay the qualifiers for an hour. They were so accommodating that they did. So the track came up tiring; it wasn’t muddy, not mucky or heavy. I don’t know if you could call that yielding, maybe, like the Thoroughbreds call their turf course after a rain. You could feel when they punched in, they would labor doing it.

The charts said the track was minus one but I would say it was easily three seconds off, so I would say that was a good mile — 1:56.2. I thought I would drive him because I didn’t want Brian to have to come all the way to go a qualifier with him. He’s got a busy schedule, it was a Friday morning. I knew he would be no problem and was in good shape, ready to go and that I could go with him. Based on that, now he’s ready to go on to the American-National in Chicago. I’ll fly in Saturday and out Sunday, the horse will ship from Lexington, where he’s stabled. If all goes well at the American-National, then we’ll look to move forward to the World Trotting Derby the following Saturday (on September 5 at the Du Quoin, Illinois State Fair).

I think we’ll go back to Lexington in between since that’s home base now. Holiday Road is in Lexington also. He’s jogging, training regularly and he’ll get ready to start in the Simpson (at The Red Mile), which is September 21.

Meanwhile, Sean (age 14) is home from camp and Brendan (age 11) is playing football, it’s his first year. He’s doing well with that. He’s athletic and he’s left-handed. I don’t know much about football, I can’t tell you what position he’s playing.

Sean grew, he’s about 6’1” or 2” so he’s an inch or two taller than I am. He’s not real interested in the horse racing. His big thing is his own running. He’s at running camp right now for the Council Rock (PA) High School cross country team. He’s going into the ninth grade.

One of the fun things about the trip to Lexington (for Muscle Hill’s qualifier) is that so many people knew Brendan from the NBC-TV show. Dan Coon, Eric, who drives the starting gate, and Billy the paddock judge recognized Brendan from the NBC show and they were so nice to him. In the races that I drove, the assistant starter was Brendan Joseph Peck, he was in the car with Dan Coon. Brendan took some nice action shots while the starting gate followed the field around the track.

A lot of people have been talking about the possibility that Muscle Hill could go under 1:50. I’ve always said I want to win the race. If that (a sub-1:50 mile) happens, it happens and that’s fine. If it doesn’t, that’s fine, too. The day of the Hambletonian, a lot of people said to me that they wish Brian had tried for sub-1:50. But you know what? Brian always takes care of him and that’s why the horse has come back like he has. I don’t think there were too many people at the Hambletonian who didn’t think we could have done that anyway, so we might as well have done it.

The conventional wisdom is that he could have gone in 1:49 and a piece in the Hambletonian. We won’t be going to Du Quoin with that in mind, but again, that would be up to Brian Sears. It’s still a horse race and he still has to win.

I haven’t been to Du Quoin since 1974, when Christopher T won and it was Billy Haughton’s first Hambletonian victory. I went with my uncle (the late) Dr. Joseph G. Peck (a former member of the Illinois Racing Board).