Night Hawk and Mad Max Hanover clearly are two of the tops in the three-year-old pacing colt division, with combined earnings exceeding $700,000. Yet consistent success has eluded them in this year’s Pennsylvania Sires Stakes; Night Hawk has one win, Mad Max Hanover none at all.

Thus, they’ll be hunting big points in Saturday’s $138,956 PASS at Hollywood Casino at The Meadows to secure berths in the championship. That $260,000 event is set for Saturday, Sept. 3 at The Meadows.

In Saturday’s stake, Night Hawk has drawn post two in the eighth race for David Miller while Mad Max Hanover goes from post five one dash later with Tim Tetrick up. The card also features a $40,000 PA Stallion Series event for sophomore colt and gelding pacers. First post is 12:45 p.m.

Mad Max Hanover finished second to Beach Glass in both the Meadowlands Pace and the Cane Pace. His best performance may have come in a victory in a Tompkins-Geers split at The Meadowlands, which he captured in 1:47.4. But that’s his only win in his last eight starts.

“He’s found himself in some bad posts,” says Jake Leamon, who trains the son of Always B Miki - Mayhem Seelster — a $50,000 yearling acquisition — for Marvin Rounick. “He races well but hasn’t been in the right spot. Timmy’s done a wonderful job driving him. Where he finished in most of his races is amazing from where he started.

“He’s big and covers the ground well, but he may lack a little quickness. It takes him a little while to get rolling. That sometimes hampers him.”

Mad Max Hanover is eligible to all the rich late-season stakes with the exception of the Little Brown Jug.

“We wanted to keep him off the half-mile track,” Leamon explains. “He’s not the quickest horse, but he can go all day.”

Night Hawk (Betting Line - Night Music), who brought $35,000 as a yearling, took that PASS division in 1:48.4 at Pocono on May 30 (pictured above); he’s winless in six outings since, a sour streak that prompted trainer Brian Brown to order a complete work-up.

“We kept changing equipment, we kept running blood,” Brown reports. “We finally scoped his stomach and found he had some ulcers. He’d already been on ulcer medication, but we upped his dose. He trained pretty well this week, and I’m looking for improvement.”

Leeman Lombardo Stable, Joe Sbrocco, In The Gym Partners and Acadia Farms Inc. campaign Night Hawk who, as Mad Max Hanover, is paid in to many late-season stakes. Unlike the connections of Mad Max Hanover, however, Brown is pointing to the Jug. And why not? Brown is based at the Delaware County Fairgrounds, home of the Jug, so the race is particularly important to him. He says:

“We’re trying right now to have him as good as we can have him for the PASS final and Delaware.”

(MSOA)