Harrah’s Philadelphia is proud to be hosting the $320,000 USD Pennsylvania Stallion Series Championships on its 12:40 card on Sunday, Sept. 8.

There are eight $40,000 USD Championships, with a final for each gait, sex, and age combination.

The Stallion Series was designed for horses who might not be of the absolute top quality to contest the Pennsylvania Sire Stakes, one of the strongest programs in North America, giving these talented trotters and pacers a chance to compete for quality money. And talent they do possess: the fastest miles ever in the program’s Championships (all three of Pennsylvania’s harness tracks, which rotate hosting on the state-sired finales, are 5/8-mile tracks) are 1:50 on the pace (Flash Move, 2023) and 1:53 on the trot (Rossini, 2013). It would not be surprising to see these standards threatened Sunday at Philly, such have been the clockings put up at the southeast Pennsylvania oval this year.

Often the Stallion Series can be a springboard to future success at higher levels: the pacing filly Weeper won her two-year-old Stallion Series Championship in 2013, then stepped up her game and triumphed in the 2014 Sire Stakes Championship. This year, the two fillies who won their Stallion Series Championships at two, trotter Sambuca Hanover and pacer Miki In Luv, will be trying to duplicate Weeper, racing for $252,000 USD in their Sire Stakes Championships Monday (Sept. 9) at Pocono. This progression is part of the reason why only one two-year-old winner from each division has come back and won their Championship at three over the fourteen years of the Stallion Series program. 

And there can be another type of progression in the Stallion Series – Ante Up Hanover, the Fair Sire Stakes champion at two for pacing males, this year came in second in his Stallion Series sophomore division point standings, and he’ll be among the highly regarded ones in his Sunday race at Philly.

No one won in all four of the Stallion Series preliminaries. A few horses started three times in the Stallion Series and won them all, and one of the main matchups on Sunday will be in the fifth race StS Championship for freshman trotting males, where prelim point leader Scudo Hanover, who won three times, faces off against Hey Porter, who was victorious in all three of his starts at this level. 

Being leading point winner indicates talent, of course, but it is no sign of imminent success: the pacing colt freshman division and the trotting filly sophomore section have produced only one Champion who led their group in the preliminary point standings over the length of the program. 

The Stallion Series serves an important function in the Pennsylvania breeding and racing industry, and they are often entertaining puzzlers for the fans to figure out and wager on – and eight new Stallion Series Champions will be crowned on Sunday at Harrah’s Philadelphia.

(PHHA / Harrah's Philadelphia)