Sierra Girl and Paulina Hanover picked up Pennsylvania Sire Stakes victories in the two-year-old trotting filly class on Sunday (Aug. 20) night at Pocono Downs at Mohegan Pennsylvania.
The races comprised the final leg of the Sire Stakes preliminaries before the Pennsylvania finals are held on Saturday, Sept. 2 at Pocono.
In the first division, which carried a purse of $79,074, Sierra Girl (Ake Svanstedt) didn’t waste much time grabbing the lead from post position four in a field of seven, and she held a sizable lead from there. In the lane, Svanstedt asked the 1-5 favourite for a little more juice and she responded, pulling away from second-place Love You Bunches (Todd Shadel) for a 3-3/4-length winning margin in a career-best 1:54.4. The Moment (Tim Tetrick) finished third.
Sierra Girl (Bar Hopping-Chuckys Luckycharm) moved to three-for-four lifetime and stayed perfect in her three Pennsylvania Sire Stakes races.
She Shaq, also trained and driven by Svanstedt, was made the 6-5 favourite in the $79,474 second Sire Stakes division. Meanwhile, Paulina Hanover (Andrew McCarthy), trained by Noel Daley, left from post position five in the field of eight as a 2-1 second choice. She retook the lead in the front stretch from brief leader Little Town Road (Brady Brown) and led from there. But she had to withstand a stout rally from She Shaq, who came up a nose short in second, with Santa Croce (Tim Tetrick) picking up the show.
With McCarthy in the bike, Paulina Hanover (Father Patrick-Personal Style) posted a career-best winning time of 1:55.4, with both of her victories in four lifetime races coming in the Sire Stakes.
In addition, there were four $20,000 divisions of The Stallion Series for two-year-old trotting fillies held on Sunday night at Pocono. The winners were: Mon Amie Martine (Brady Brown, Steve Schoeffel) in 1:58:2; Norma Pearl (David Miller, Ron Burke) in 1:57.1; Magic Bee (Tyler Buter, Nifty Norman) in 1:56.3; and Sambuca Hanover (David Miller, Nifty Norman) in 1:55.3.
Pocono resumes live harness racing on Monday (Aug. 21) afternoon with a first post time of 1 p.m. There are 14 races on the Monday Pocono card.
(Pocono Downs)