HOT Corey Callahan finished thirteenth in money
and eighth in wins last year. As 2013 comes to a close, he’s sixth in money and
fourth in wins. Callahan finds himself in the select company of Tetrick,
Gingras, Sears, David Miller and Pierce. He’s ahead of Brennan in both
categories.
NOT Googoo Gaagaa had what was described as
minor surgery for an entrapped epiglottis after finishing fifth in his Cutler
elimination in May. At the time it was labeled a minor procedure and he was
expected to be miss a week and then compete in the Maxie Lee. That didn’t
happen. He qualified in Maryland in August and raced for $500 at a Fair in
September, but never started in a meaningful race. He’s registered as a
Maryland trotting stallion with a book that’s full and closed. Goo will
apparently race and breed.
HOT Ronnie Wren Jr. was fourteenth on the dash
list in 2012 with 437 wins. He ascended to the top during 2013 and had
accumulated more than 665 wins by mid-December.
HOT Ohio has been inundated with standardbred
stallions, some young and untried and others not up to competing in
Pennsylvania and New York. Although slots money will pump new life into the
sire stakes program, there isn’t enough dough in the pot for all of them. Many
of the holdover stallions and mares will be pushed out of state when the new group
comes online. The musical chairs style culling of substandard stallions is a
long time coming but that day is finally here. A few like Hypnotic Blue Chip,
Santana Blue Chip and Foreclosure have been able to return to the races but
most don’t have that option.
NOT Ontario has seen Bettor’s Delight, Muscle
Mass, and a slew of others head south. Glidemaster, with only one ace in his
portfolio, is the only one headed there.
HOT Art Major had a very good year on the Grand
Circuit and in the NYSS. Precocious Beauty is a good bet to win her division
and Shes Da Bomb was another top 2-year-old filly pacer. Also, JK Endofanera emerged as a force in the
freshman colt class in the late fall, winning the Elevation and the Governor’s
Cup. Fool Me Once and Doctor Butch won lots of dough in the NYSS, and White
Bliss, the snow white colt out of Coochie Mama, brought 240K at Harrisburg. Art
Major was second only to SBSW among stallions that sold ten or more at
Harrisburg.
NOT After years of dipping his hand in the
money room cookie jar at Plainridge, to the tune of a million dollars, Gary
Piontkowski was forced to resign in disgrace from the track he helped found and
served as president.
HOT Hanover Shoe Farms hosts the breed’s
hottest pacing stallion—SBSW—and his trotting counterpart—Cantab Hall.
HOT Bee A Magician won all 17 starts and
clinched HOY honors in the US and Canada.
NOT Canadian Sportsman, which featured the
premier visual presentation in all of harness racing, and served as a
forthright voice for Ontario racing, is closing shop after 143 years.
NOT George Teague Jr., who was twentieth on the
trainers earning’s list last year, doesn’t even make the top 50 this year. His
pride and joy, Somwherovrarainbow, has been switched to the Holloway barn.
HOT Pet Rock set world records on half-mile and
5/8 mile tracks in 2013. He was much improved over his sophomore season, with
wins in the Haughton, Roll With Joe and Winbak, among others, and he finished
second to Foiled in earnings within the division.
NOT Fourteen Mister Big yearlings sold at
Harrisburg in 2012 and 85% of them brought less than 15,000. This year only one
sold at Harrisburg and one at Lexington. Six averaged 7,500 at the Canadian
Yearling Sale and three averaged 2,000 at Forest City. Mister Big comes up
small in the eyes of buyers.
NOT The Little Brown Jug was shunned by The
Captain’s connections as they favored a soft invitational in Indiana—of all
places—over the Delaware, Ohio classic. And as if that wasn’t bad enough,
Richard Young ripped them a new one for shortchanging him on Nitelife’s Jugette
purse, and, for keeping him waiting when he went to get his license renewed.
HOT Cantab Hall, the top trotting sire in the
sport, had his fee doubled to 20K, making him our highest priced trotting
stallion. (Advertised stallion--Muscle Hill’s fee is not disclosed.)
NOT Dewey has had his 2014 fee slashed to
7,500. That represents a 62.5% reduction from his opening fee of $20,000 in
Kentucky.
NOT After a perfect nine for nine freshman
campaign that netted him a Dan Patch and an O’Brien, Wheeling N Dealin came up
empty in 2013.
NOT Wheeling N Dealin’s trainer, Dustin Jones,
was fired by owner Serge Godin.
HOT David Miller, number four in lifetime
earnings behind John Campbell, Ron Pierce and
Mike
Lachance, was voted into the HOF.
NOT After an excellent freshman season, topped
off by a dominant BC win and a Dan Patch, To Dream On managed only two wins,
the Reynolds and the Kentucky Filly Futurity.
NOT In an election for a seat on the board of
directors of the Harness Breeders of New York, Joe Faraldo was trounced 80 to
32 by chief nemesis Jeff Gural.
HOT After wins in the BC and the TVG, nine-year-old
Foiled Again is the toast of the town, prompting a slew of silly season
articles treating him like a legitimate HOY/POY candidate.
NOT After being favored in the Meadowlands
Maturity in the spring, while ARNRD went off at 46/1, the beloved speedball,
Hurrikane Kingcole, saw his season go from bad to worse. He won one race after
that—two for the season—and finished up on the losing end of an open at Tioga.
He earned about $62,000.
NOT The Credit Winner colt, Jurgen Hanover, who
swept the Weiss Series and then won the EBC, was 7 for 7 going into his Beal
elimination, but he lost that and a NYSS race as well, and was soon out of
action for the season.
NOT San Pail made a couple of starts in the
preferred class at Mohawk late in the season, and then disappeared again. Seven
of his eight career open wins occurred in 2011.
HOT He’s Watching went 8 for 8 in the NYSS and
set a world record for his age group at Tioga. Despite his restricted environment
he stood out amidst a weak group of GC colts and will no doubt win his
division.
NOT The Shadow Play filly Book Babe went a big
:52.4 mile winning a Gold Leg at Mohawk on July 1 for Billy Davis Jr., but she
broke a sesamoid bone in her left hind leg and may not race again.
NOT Walter Case Jr. was denied a license again,
this time in Pennsylvania.
NOT David Brooks was sentenced to 17 years in
prison for running a 185 million dollar stock swindle.
HOT American Jewel was pronounced in foal to
SBSW.
NOT Odds On Equuleus and Wake Up Peter went a
combined 0 for 34 in 2013.
NOT Crazed has been deported to Ohio after a general
failure to produce and a disappointing Harrisburg sale.
NOT Ontario stallion, Vintage Master, has been
exiled to New Jersey. He went from the Titanic to the Andrea Doria.
NOT Shark Gesture has been relocated from
Pennsylvania to Ohio. His stud fee was lowered from 6K to 4K. The WEG preferred
pacer, Piston Broke, is probably his best performing offspring.
HOT Baberhood, the dam of He’s Watching, was sold
to Hanover for 130K by Perretti. She’s in foal to Rocknroll Hanover.
HOT Ron Burke set new records for wins and
earnings in 2013. He became the first trainer to win 1,000 races in a single
season, and he broke his own 20 million dollar earning’s mark.
HOT Jimmy
Takter trains the outstanding pair of freshman trotters, Father Patrick and
Shake It Cerry. He will finish second to Ron Burke with more than 700 wins and
about eight million dollars earned.
HOT Team McNair, trainer Gregg and his son
Doug, had a great year and are among the leaders in the trainer/driver
categories in Canada thanks to the likes of Precocious Beauty, Three Of Clubs,
Crafty Master and Luck Is All Indeed. Doug is the only one of the top six WEG
based drivers from 2012 to improve his position on the money list in 2013.
Jamieson, who finished seventh, is currently in twelfth; Filion dropped from
ten to fifteen; Scott Zeron went from ninth to seventeenth etc. McNair made a
modest jump from eighteenth to sixteenth. All of this with two weeks left.
NOT 2011 Hambletonion winner, Broad Bahn, was
withdrawn from the stallion ranks in New York and given a one way ticket to
Europe. There was a chilling lack of interest in breeding to the son of
Broadway Hall.
HOT Jeff Gural. The Meadowlands enjoyed an
increase in handle and interest as the new grandstand was completed and opened
for business on schedule. He also brought the TVG race concept to fruition and won
the public over with it.
NOT Alan Leavitt, the only standardbred member
of the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, was voted down when he advocated for
separate medication rules for thoroughbreds and standardbreds. Instead the
commission adopted the new RMTC rules package for all breeds. Beyond that,
Leavitt has watched his stallion, Deweycheatumnhowe, struggle to establish
himself as a credible sire.
HOT Bettor’s Delight, the sire of Vegas
Vacation and Shebestingin, was inducted into the Living HOF this year. He leads
all pacing sires on the all age earning’s list in 2013.
NOT More was expected from Jimmy Takter’s trio
of four-year-old trotters than what they delivered. Little Brown Fox couldn’t
cut it in the FFA class; Guccio only won twice for 210K; and while Uncle Peter earned
good money and did establish a new world record for 4-year-old stallions at
Pocono and established a track record for his class at Hoosier Park, he had no
stakes wins aside from the Centaur. Add to this the lack of participation by
Goo and Intimidate and we see why this division as a whole didn’t meet
expectations and only contributed seven starters for the TVG final when ten
were called for.
HOT Marvin Katz owns pieces of
Captaintreacherous, Father Patrick and Uffizi Hanover.
HOT Driving all those Burke horses has been a
boon for Matt Kakaley. Last year he finished seventeenth on the money list, but
with a couple of weeks to go he currently sits in eighth, just behind George
Brennan and in front of Andy Miller. He’s 320 short of last year’s total number
of drives right now but has won about 60 more races and earned 1.4 million more
in purse money.
NOT The Trackmaster Predictive Rankings had
Odds On Equuleus, Doctor Butch, Rockin Amadeus, Windsong Jack,
Somewherovrarainbow, Mach Pride, Dovuto Hanover and Johns Polyview in this
year’s pacing top ten. And on the trotting side their top ten contained To
Dream On, Dontyouforgetit, Fashion Athena, Wheeling N Dealin, Angies Lucky
Star, Royal Assets and Fashion Blizzard. It’s time for a new approach.
JF
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