Ace Of Pace comes into Friday night’s $402,400 Sweetheart Pace for two-year-old fillies at the Meadowlands Racetrack with a perfect four-for-four record

. Thanks to her $159,200 in earnings she received a bye directly to the final and did not have to compete in the event’s single elimination race on August 13. The Mark Ford-trained, Belle Amore Stable-owned filly has wins in her two qualifiers as well as a $37,900 division of the Debutante Stake, a leg and $200,000 final of the New Jersey Sire Stakes and a $51,500 division of the Countess Adios, all at the Meadowlands.

The daughter of Cams Card Shark-Whatsupcuz was a $14,000 yearling purchase (sold under the name Whaddya Hanover) for Meir and Iris Geller’s Belle Amore Stable. Geller had a few distinct and some indistinct factors that entered into this selection.

“Her breeding; I liked the family she was from,” he said. “When I go [to the sales], I’m not looking to buy a stakes winner, I’m just looking to buy a horse that looks like they could become a good racehorse. The things that I look for in a horse, she had them.

“I like some muscularity. In fillies, I like attitude. It’s very ephemeral, in a way, to talk about. I like to look a horse in the eyes. I don’t know what to tell you what I see. I like to see some feistiness, not kind of a bad-mannered feistiness. I like some assertiveness. That’s what I go to look for and that’s what I saw.

“Now whether it was there and this is all my imagination, I couldn’t tell you,” he added with a laugh. “I’ve been fairly successful picking out horses and that’s what I do.”

Ace Of Pace, driven by George Brennan, is not only the Sweetheart field’s richest filly, she is the fastest. She has a mark of 1:52, which she established in winning her Countess Adios split on August 5.

“She did everything right in training and she just kept doing it,” Geller said. “She’s a small filly. Obviously she has a big heart and she likes to race. Corrine, her groom, she gets a lot of love and I think that’s an important ingredient in racehorses. I think her best qualities are definitely that she enjoys racing, she enjoys competing, and to my eyes she seems to float over the ground as opposed to pounding.”

Geller and his wife, Iris, who live in San Juan, Puerto Rico, race under the Belle Amore Stable name.

“Actually it came from Italian, but my wife insisted that we spell “bella” (Italian for beautiful), Belle,” Geller said. “We went to Italy to a friend’s daughter’s wedding and I started calling my wife my belle amore in an endearing way, enjoying our vacation. Later on, I told her I wanted to try to make owning racehorses a business and she supported me. It’s not all [horses like] Ace of Pace; in some of the early times we had to question if this was really the business to be in, should we keep going? I said to her, ‘Let’s get a stable name,’ and suggested Belle Amore, which she liked.”

Geller’s fulltime foray into the horse business follows a few other businesses, all of which helped him develop skills useful in the horse business.

“I did several things,” he said. “I was a steel importer. I traded in stocks and commodities markets for myself and did a little bit of real estate projects for myself and my partners. Then I decided to try doing the horse racing. You know what, it’s a business and there are many things you have to be lucky at, but yet there are many similarities. You try to buy good, have good people and reward good work and pray you have luck.”

Shyaway won the Sweetheart elimination race by 1-3/4 lengths over Ladystar in 1:52.3. Show And Tell, who has won three of five races and earned $82,413 this season, joined Ace Of Pace in receiving a bye.

Here is a look at the Sweetheart Pace field in post position order with listed drivers and trainers:

1. Rocklamation, Ron Pierce, Mark Harder
2. Shyaway, Brian Sears, Chris Ryder
3. Mothermayi Hanover, Andy Miller, Luis Porfilio
4. Cndiana Jones, Tyler Buter, Wayne Givens
5. Show And Tell, Yannick Gingras, Jim Campbell
6. Honky Tonk Woman, David Miller, Jeffrey Webster
7. Ace Of Pace, George Brennan, Mark Ford
8. Ms Malicious, Tim Tetrick, Jerry Silverman
9. Ladystar, John Campbell, Larry Rathbone
10. Myluvmylife, Mike Lachance, Joseph King

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