Joe Looks Ahead

With Meadowlands Pace night in the books, our regular contributor Joe F. takes a look ahead in the world of harness raicng:

With The Captain on vacation until the Battle Of Brandywine on August 27, the Adios, which holds eliminations on Saturday and the final July 27, provides an opportunity for some of the other colts in that lopsided division to strut their stuff. Unfortunately Odds On Equuleus was not staked to The adios, which does not take supplemental entries. The same can be said of The Captain’s little brother, Wake Up Peter. He wasn’t nominated either. Apparently they travel as a team. Sunfire Blue Chip, Sunshine Beach, Vegas Vacation, Twilight Bonfire and Word Power are among those eligible for the race. The Captain is not staked to the Messenger, later in the season, and while Equuleus was nominated to that race, Wake up Peter was not. The connections of Rocknroll Heaven paid 60K to supplement him to the Messenger a couple of years ago; it now costs only 30K plus a $2,500h entrance fee.

The sister stake to the Adios, the Adioo Volo, which carries a purse of about 140K, offers an opportunity for last year’s Dan Patch winner, Somwherovrarainbow, to regain some luster. Nitelife, Charisma, Shebestingin and Jerseylicious are all absent from the list of Eligibles.

Equuleus will have an opportunity to dominate in the 250K Empire Breeders Classic at Tioga on August 11. If he is indeed a top three player in that division he should be able to handle this bunch and take home the winner’s share. That is unless the great Doctor Butch, who was ranked third in this year’s Hoof Beats TrackMaster Predictive Rankings, suddenly morphs into the star they say he is.

Shebestingin appears to be in the same position as Equuleus in the filly division of the EBC pace. 

And Royalty For Life, on his best behavior, should lord it over the trotting colts. Off what she did as a freshman To Dream On would be a cinch to mow down the nominees to the EBC for three-year-old trotting fillies, but she’s been a different filly thus far so that one is still up in the air.

It appears that all the top players are eligible to the Battle Of Brandywine and Valley Forge. An interesting addition to the eligibles for the latter is the Badlands Hanover filly, Love Canal. She came from eighth at the three-quarters to win her CBC elimination at Mohawk Saturday night—last quarter in :26. Love Canal has only raced outside of Canada once, in a F&M C-1 at the Meadowlands in the spring.

All of the big players, including Eli, are staked to the Colonial. There’s been lots of talk about Bee A Magician taking on the boys in the Hambletonion, but Jimmy Takter was apparently so impressed by To Dream On’s freshman campaign that he made her the only filly nominated to the Colonial.

With the completion of the Haughton, there are five legs of the TVG series for pacers left on the calendar. The elimination round for the USPC on July 27 counts for a half measure of points while the final for that one, the Allerage Open Final, the BC Final and an Open at M1 on November 23, all carry full points. Right now the leader is Sweet Lou, with 73 points. Fred And Ginger is second, two points back. Golden Receiver is third with 60. These three are followed by Pet Rock, Needy, Duer, Dancin Yankee, Kingcole, Modern Legend and Dynamic Youth. Foiled, who has only earned 18 points in his three series’ starts, is in eleventh place. There should be an opportunity for him to move up. ARNRD has two points, while Dan Patch winner, Heston Blue Chip, has one.

Needy is not staked to the Allerage Open—surprise, surprise. Up The Credit is. I believe it costs about 21K to supplement to the Open. Looking ahead, he may be in a position where he doesn’t need those points to qualify for the TVG Final.