Four Sixes, a Six Pack colt, is undefeated in three 2024 starts after recording a 1:55 victory in one of four $27,027 first-round prelims of the Bobby Weiss Series for three-year-old trotting males on as nice a Monday, April 8 afternoon as one could want at Pocono Downs at Mohegan Pennsylvania.

Four Sixes was directed to the front by driver Tyler Buter as the field passed under the wire the first time and coasted home to a 3-3/4-length victory for trainer Tom Loughry Jr. and Lone Wolf Stable. 

The 1:55 mile was a new mark for the winner and it tied him for Weiss speed honours with a Chapter Seven colt also posting a lifetime best, Victor Laszlo (named after the freedom fighter in the movie Casablanca who was married to Ingrid Bergman). Victor Laszlo set the pace and then held off onrushing Usain Hanover by half a length for driver Mark MacDonald, trainer Ray Schnittker and the partnership of Schnittker Arnold, Paul Bordogna, Ted Gewertz and Arden Homestead Stable.

Victor Laszlo trotted to his second victory in as many seasonal starts; so did Blackhawk Zette, a Cantab Hall colt who recorded a lifetime best of 1:55.4 while just edging out Green Pastures by a nose for driver Matt Kakaley, trainer Robert Baggitt Jr., and owner J L Sadowsky LLC. 

The final Weiss cut was the only one not to be won by the favourite (on a Pocono card that yielded 11 chalk winners in 15 contests), and the only Weiss race where the winner did not take a mark. The race boiled down to trainees of the co-owners of 2005 Hambletonian winner Vivid Photo, Todd Schadel and Roger Hammer, and it was the Schadel trainee, the Tactical Landing gelding Shermont prevailing in 1:57.1 for Babyshine Hanover Stable LLC. Tyler Buter recorded his second Weiss win of the day behind the successful seasonal debutant. 

There were also seven $12,162 divisions of the second leg of the Game Of Claims Pacing Series for horses carrying a base tag of $16,892, and only the two repeat winners, Fredneck (driver George Napolitano Jr., new mark of 1:53.1) and My Mind Is Madeup (Braxten Boyd, 1:53.3), were claimed among the septet of horses who paraded back to Victory Lane after Game Of Claims races. 

Matt Kakaley drove two series winners, adding to his Weiss win to tie him for day’s driving honours with Braxten Boyd: Seal O Neill (1:53.4) and Cheyenne Reijane (1:53, and remarkable in that the meet’s leading driver anywhere rarely pays $98.40 to win). Other Game Of Claims winners were Team Mac (Jim Pantaleano, the fastest Game Of Claims time of 1:52.3 for a new mark), Record Year (Simon Allard, 1:53.1) and Buckeye Emery (Anthony Napolitano, 1:54). 

The upturn in mercury surely aided the Captaintreacherous gelding De Los Cielos Deo to tie for the fastest win at the meet with a 1:51.1 score. The eight-year-old looked like the colt who was briefly near the top of his class in his freshman campaign, pacing strongly for driver Anthony Napolitano and trainer/driver Besim Odza. And if you were really impressed with De Los Cielos Deo, he’s entered right back for a $30,000 USD tag on the Saturday, April 13 card!

Sixteen races are on tap for Tuesday’s 1 p.m. program, with six divisions of the opening leg of the Weiss for sophomore filly trotters, each for $20,000 USD, and a like number of $17,500 USD events for the second round of the Game Of Claims Trot for horses bearing a $27,500 USD price tag.

(PHHA / Pocono)