Overcoming a sloppy track, a first-over move and very tough opposition, the four-year-old Shadow Play gelding Backstreet Shadow showed speed and gameness in taking a $30,000 Great Northeast Open Series (GNOS) event for fast-class pacing horses in 1:49.2.

On paper, three horses seemed to have the best credentials–None Bettor A was sent as the 8-5 favourite with Backstreet Shadow 9-5 and Highalator 2-1–and they were the three major players in the race. None Bettor A made the early lead, yielded to Highalator before the :26.4 quarter, then retook in front of the stands and got a bit of a rest to a :55.3 half.

Backstreet Shadow, who had tucked fourth from post 7 early, launched his first-over bid off the second turn for driver Pat Berry, and the sharp pacer went his own third quarter in :26 to get within a length of None Bettor A by three-quarters in 1:22.1. Around the turn and through the stretch those two continued to fight, joined in the lane by a resurgent Highalator in the Pocono Pike. Backstreet Shadow showed his grittiness by defeating None Bettor A by a head with Highalator just another neck back in third.

Backstreet Shadow has now won four races in a row and 10 on the year, boosting his seasonal earnings to $200,700 and lifetime bankroll to $369,646. Ron Burke trains the talented sidewheeler for Burke Racing Stable LLC and Weaver Bruscemi LLC, Lawrence Karr, and J&T Silva- Purnel & Libby.

The rest of the races in the report were conducted over a “fast” track, before a mid-card hard rain and a slight weather delay.

Atta Boy Dan got revenge on the horse who snapped his recent five-race winning streak, Benjis Best, ending that one’s own four-race victory skein with a 1:49.3 engine victory in the $20,000 claiming handicap pace for driver George Napolitano Jr. (a five-time winner on the night), trainer Mike Watson, and owner Clifford Grundy. The victorious 10-year-old Western Terror gelding, now with 65 wins and $886,417 in winnings, bested his rival by one-and-a-quarter lengths–and then both were promptly claimed for the highest-level price of $40,000.

This is the 10th-straight race (three of them for Grundy/Watson, all wins) out of which Atta Boy Dan has been claimed, approaching the local record of 13-straight claims set by R Gauwitz Hanover in 2015. It’s easy to understand the appeal of the game veteran–his record since coming to Pocono on May 11 is 14-10-2-1-$113,460–and he has been claimed 13 times, 11 for the $40,000 maximum.

19-year-old provisional driver Jack Killeen, an Irishman who came to America on a five-year visa to pursue his dream of being a full-time horseman, made his Pocono debut a smashing one, guiding Duc De Guise F to a $65.20 victory after coming from last up the backstretch to be just up in 1:55.4. The French-bred trotter, whom Killeen co-owns and had driven in his native land last year before crossing the Atlantic, showed no rust from nearly a year away from the races, putting in a big late kick deep in the Pocono Pike to pass everybody for trainer Michael Seddon (whose only other career training winner paid $230.40) and the partnership of Killeen and Sinners Racing.

In the very next race, another horse making his Stateside debut was victorious–after coming about three times as far to get to Pocono as Duc De Guise F did. The Somebeachsomewhere gelding San Domino A made a second move to close with solid strides and take a 1:49.1 mark in his first U.S. race. George Napolitano Jr. drove the Aussie-bred pacer, who looks headed for bigger things, for trainer Andrew Harris and the ownership of Joe P Racing LLC and Oldford Racing LLC.

(PHHA/Pocono)