The 2015 HANA Harness Grand Circuit Handicapping Challenge had a relatively quiet week after all the excitement on Breeders Crown night.
There were eight races on Friday evening at Hoosier Park and two on Saturday at Vernon Downs.
Friday evening saw quite a bit of action and one clear winner. Accepting the accolades of all involved was Derrick Giwner, who selected six of eight winners. That was two more winners than his closest competitor. For his excellence, Giwner earned 374 HANA contest points. Three other players were able to select a different set of four winners each. Jonijosi Verlingieri (203) out pointed both Bryan Owen (166) and Jay Hochstetler (161). Verlingieri’s key was Foiled Again who had the best return win price among the quad winners.
In regard to Saturday, with only two races, one would think there might not have been a lot of points to be collected, but it could have been a huge night. The favoured Takter entry failed to hit the board in one of the Kindergarten divisions (it was won by Wildflower and Ake Svenstedt at $185!). Unfortunately, none of the handicappers were able to land the biggest win price of the HANA contest this season. Two of the handicappers did not pick a winner, but topped the night chart. Both had Sweet Ashley T and received 52 points for the show price! Those two very smart souls were Garnet Barnsdale and Jay Hochstetler. Barnsdale won the evening’s tie breaker with Mavens Way to show. In the other Kindergarten event, six handicappers finished tied for third, winning with Dog Gone Lucky for 10 HANA contest points. They were Ray Cotolo, Mark Dezii, Sally Hinckley, Rusty Nash, Earl Paulson and Anne Stepien.
There were no major moves in the standings given the difficult and short prices on Friday evening at Hoosier Park. The top five remain the same as last week, Sally Hinckley, Mark McKelvie, Anne Stepien, Dennis O’Hara and Gordon Waterstone. Hinckley was able to pad her lead over McKelvie to 308 points. However, the field continued to tighten up behind McKelvie. There are now ten handicappers separated by less than 1,000 points.
The contest has a very busy two days on tap this week. It will kick things off with six races Thursday evening at Dover Downs with the Matron for two-year-olds. The focus will shift to Balmoral Park on Saturday for the American National where the contest will have at least eight more puzzles to try and solve.
(With files from HANA)