This Saturday (Feb. 8), Standardbreds will take to the track at The Downs at Mohegan Sun Pocono for the earliest seasonal opening of the track’s 55-year history.

Pocono’s 13-race card is scheduled to kick off at 5 p.m.

The new Game of Claims Series, which groups horses of varying values, will be featured at the track in February. It’s appropriate that the claiming horses will provide the early season highlights at Pocono, where 483 claims resulted in $9,465,025 turnover during 2019.

On Saturday, the first preliminary leg of the Game of Claims Series will be featured. The series is for various levels of pacers, and elimination rounds will determine who will be in the finals.

Trainer Rene Allard is scheduled to send out horses in four of the five Game Of Claims races on Saturday. Three of the Allard horses are new to his barn. The ‘holdover,’ Maxdaddy Blue Chip, was the 2017 Pacer of the Year at Pocono, and is still going strong at age eight.

Another ‘golden oldie,’ the 11-year-old Atta Boy Dan, will return to Pocono in a $14,000 pace after having been named the 2019 Pocono Pacer of the Year. Atta Boy Dan, who will be starting from the outside in a field of seven, was the winningest harness horse in the United States last year (19 victories). He was also the focus of the attention of many stables in 2019, as he was claimed no fewer than 17 times, for a total of $670,000.

FINISHING LINES – In Tuesday morning qualifying action at Pocono, Crocketts Cullen N turned in a sharp 1:54.2 mile in wire-to-wire fashion for driver Larry Stalbaum and trainer Tracy Tarantino. The Kiwi import won 15 times in 2019, including ten times in his last 15 starts, all of which were in high-class company.

(With files from PHHA / Pocono)