Dave McDuffee has not been looking for instant gratification with Poof Shes Gone this year. McDuffee, who is among the filly’s owners, is more concerned with the big picture

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That picture could become clearer in Saturday’s $750,000 Hambletonian Oaks at the Meadowlands. Poof Shes Gone won her elimination race last weekend by three-quarters of a length over Bar Slide in 1:53.1.

Poof Shes Gone had an award-winning campaign as a two-year-old, winning 10 of 12 races and never finishing worse than third on her way to $1.07 million in purses. Her seasonal earnings were the second most for a two-year-old trotter in history, trailing only Snow White’s $1.25 million in 2007, and she was honoured by the U.S. Harness Writers Association with the Dan Patch Award as the sport’s best two-year-old filly.

This year, however, there have been a few ups and downs. She has won four of eight starts and earned $217,328. She won a division of the Casual Breeze Stakes at Mohawk Racetrack in June and was third in the Elegantimage two weeks later. She entered the Oaks off a second-place finish in the Canadian Breeders Championship.

“Obviously, her line shows she hasn’t been as dominating,” trainer Richard “Nifty” Norman said. “She’s raced well without a lot of luck. A couple times she’s been really good.

“She raced really well up in Canada, but got too far back and was a victim of the trip. I do feel she’s coming around. She’s been a little sick a couple times. She wasn’t 100 percent and that’s the difference between winning and not winning.”

McDuffee was not worried about what happened in Canada, as long as it laid the groundwork for what happens in East Rutherford.

“I think she’s actually done very well under the circumstances,” said McDuffee, who own Poof Shes Gone with Melvin Hartman, Herb Liverman and John Fielding. “It’s a long season. We went the Elegantimage route, but our focus right from the beginning was the Hambletonian Oaks.

“Nifty is pretty conservative when it comes to getting horses ready. I don’t think he had her as fine tuned for the Elegantimage. We were looking at the long haul instead of the short haul. I think she’s been pampered a little more than she normally would be.”

Basically, it has been a case of walking a fine line for Poof Shes Gone.

“It’s a long grind,” McDuffee said. “There are two major races in the U.S. we want, and we want to be eligible for the Canadian championship and try to do everything else in between.

“I think she’s been protected pretty good. That mile at the elimination was pretty good. The last sixteenth of a mile, I don’t know if I’ve seen anything more impressive. She’s a good filly; she gives you a good, honest effort every week and I think she’ll put a good effort in Saturday.”

Driver David Miller liked how Poof Shes Gone performed during the elimination race and feels her progress is encouraging.

“She felt great today,” Miller said. “She hasn’t been very sharp, especially in her last start but she was much better (Saturday). As soon as I got her out she took right off and that’s the key to her style.

“She always seemed to have something that was ailing her in the past and we couldn’t get it just right. It worked out good in the eliminations and we’re in the final. I think I have a good shot.”

McDuffee has had his share of quality horses in the past and has two others – Behindclosedoors and In The Mean Time – in Saturday’s Oaks. But he feels there are special qualities in Poof.

“We’ve had a lot of great trotting fillies who all have their own personalities,” McDuffee said. “But this filly, to me, is the best of the bunch by quite a bit. She’s kind of the complete package. She can lead, she can come from behind, she’ll sit in the hole, she’ll follow somebody. She’s a great gaited filly.

“We need to have some luck with the draws with those other two. They’re good fillies as well, but they’re not in the same category as Poof.”

This story courtesy of Harness Racing Communications, a division of the U.S. Trotting Association. For more information, visit www.ustrotting.com.