Page 21 - Dan Patch Award News Today

Manchego, a returning Dan Patch Award winner who won the Arthur J. Cutler Memorial in her 2021 debut, is the No. 1-ranked horse in this season’s first Hambletonian Society/Breeders Crown poll. The six-year-old female trotter received 20 of 35 first-place votes. Six-year-old male pacer This Is The Plan, the MGM Borgata Series champion and the sport’s leading money-winner, was second in the rankings. He was followed by four-year-old male trotter Its Academic, three-year-old male pacer Abucka...

This Week: Graduate Series leg, The Meadowlands, East Rutherford, N.J. Schedule of events: The Grand Circuit heads to The Meadowlands on Saturday (May 22) with two $50,000 divisions in the first leg of the Graduate Series for four-year-old open trotters. Last Time: One thing was certain at the conclusion of Saturday night’s (May 15) $141,250 Arthur J. Cutler Memorial at The Meadowlands: Manchego is not the retiring type. The six-year-old mare went a herculean mile in taking the 24th edition o...

A Friday morning (May 14) session of qualifiers at The Meadowlands featured a number of notable performances, but the most eye-catching efforts came from a pair of talent trotters. The fifth qualifier of the morning was the most notable, as the exasperating trotter Beads etched his name into harness racings record books with a qualifier in 1:50.2. Off fractions of :27.2, :55.1 and 1:22.4, the four-year-old chugged home in :27.2 nearly six lengths better than a seasonally debuting Ready For Moni...

Guardian Angel AS has been part of Anna Lorentzon’s life for the better part of six years now, so it is no surprise she developed a special connection with her family’s homebred trotter. But their bond goes beyond mere success on the racetrack, where the stallion has won multiple Grand Circuit stakes and earned more than $1.5 million. “He was my father’s favourite horse of the last 10 or 15 years,” said Lorentzon, referring to John-Erik Magnusson, who passed away in 2018. “As long a...

The Meadowlands Championship Meet escalates quickly with several important stakes this weekend. Friday features the first leg of the New Jersey Sires Stakes (NJSS) for the sophomore set. The first of three eight horse $25,000 divisions for colts and geldings kicks off the card and will serve as the stage for the Meadowlands debut of the intriguing Trixton colt Cuatro De Julio. A homebred, owned by legendary French horseman Jean Pierre Dubois as D Farm, LLC, Cuatro De Julio comes from humble be...

A number of high-profile Standardbreds made solid strides toward a return to the races during the Saturday (April 24) session of qualifiers at The Meadowlands. Calle Palema (Ake Svanstedt) was a wire-to-wire winner in 1:56.1 over 2020 freshman standouts Zenith Stride (Brian Sears) and In Range (Tim Tetrick). The gelded son of Muscle Hill - Fillyanthropy, a three-time winner as a rookie, took a new lifetime mark for owner Bender Sweden Inc. of Vero Beach, Fl. Balenciaga didnt make any starts at ...

Vicki Pappas, Heart To Heart Among 2021 Class Inducted Into Canadian Horse Racing Hall Of Fame Sponsored by: The Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame is pleased to name three people and three horses to be inducted as the Class of 2021. As previously announced, the Board of Directors agreed to reduce the number of inductees for the Class of 2021 to three per breed. This will allow for the 2020 and 2021 inductees to be properly recognized together, once a gala event may be hosted. The Hal...

With two horses already guaranteed spots in the final of the MGM Borgata Series for older male pacers, trainer Ron Burke will look to add a third on Monday (April 12), when Yonkers Raceway hosts the last preliminary round of the six-week event. Based on points accumulated in the series, the Burke Brigade’s Rockapelo and This Is The Plan are among five horses to have already secured places in the eight-horse final on April 19. The others are Western Joe, Hesa Kingslayer N and Leonidas A. Burke...

Anoka Hanover might not have been the hardest working horse in harness racing last season, but as far as Dan Patch Award-winning two-year-old trotters over a span of almost 25 years, she was nearly at the top. The Noel Daley-trained Anoka Hanover won 10 of 14 starts in 2020 and captured the Dan Patch Award for best two-year-old trotting filly. Going back to 1997 only one two-year-old Dan Patch Award winning trotter—female or male—exceeded 13 races: the filly Check Me Out, who won 14 of 16 i...

The connections to Always A Virgin have announced a stud-fee deal for the stallions 2021 season. “Always A Virgin might have had his best two-year-old season ever in 2020 with such standouts as the Champion filly Somethingbeautiful p,2,1:51.4 ($312,000) and the Fox Stake winner Virgo p,2,1:51.4 ($126,817), and I have been quite surprised that he has not had more breeding requests for the 2021 season,” said Jeff King of Victory Hill Farm, where the sire of more Breeders Crown winners than an...