After making an early season splash with The Awful Truth last year at Meadowlands Racetrack, trainer Heidi Rohr is back with another promising stakes prospect
, Fox Valley Seth.
The four-year-old gelding will start from post three in Race 11, one of three $20,000 Complex Series divisions, on Friday night. The Complex shares the spotlight with the Clyde Hirt Series, which also begins a three-week stint that evening. Post time is 7 p.m. for the 13-race card.
Fox Valley Seth enters the Complex with a career slate of six wins, nine seconds and four thirds in 40 starts and earnings of $114,098.
"Fox Valley Seth was a $60,000 Harrisburg purchase [at the November 2009 mixed sale] for one of our biggest owners, Joseph Trice of Hampden, Maine," Rohr said. "He turned in a real solid qualifier the other day and he'll be ready. We're hoping for big things out of him. He's built to be the real deal and a classy horse around the barn. We drew inside and picked up [driver] Brian Sears, so we're looking forward to Friday."
Rohr, a 30-year-old native of Exeter, NH, kicked off the season with a win (Sams Shuffle) and close second (Mysticole Maggie at 70-1) on opening weekend of the 2010 Meadowlands harness meet.
"We had a great opening night," she said. "It was much anticipated and it was a great way to start off the New Year. Sam's Shuffle was entered for Friday night, but unfortunately both her and Mysticole Maggie fit the same class. So, 'Sam' had to sit out this week."
Mysticole Maggie will start from post six in race nine, a conditioned race for fillies and mares, Friday night. The 5-year-old daughter of Cole Muffler was a consistent cheque-earner in 2009, hitting the board in 22 of 38 starts and banking $75,000.
"We got her from Illinois and she raced tough, hitting the board every week in the Saratoga Open last year," she said. "Mark Beckwith was driving her and every time he got off the bike, he told us we had to get this mare to the Meadowlands. He felt she would be a lot better suited to the bigger track. Dave Miller drove her perfectly [last week], yet she's not a hard horse to drive. The owners wanted to send her out this way and a friend of ours referred us. We're just fortunate to get her."
Rohr traded a career in finance to train horses with her boyfriend, Jim Nickerson, and the pair continues to ship in from their base of operations at the Golden Shoe Training Center in Montgomery, NY. She and her father bought their first horse together in the eighties and she learned the racing business hands on. Rohr utilized her college degree in finance and computer information systems by working behind a desk for about six years, before the horses won out.
"My boyfriend, Jim, and I didn't just hop into the business with top horses," she noted. "We worked to get where we are and the hard work is starting to pay off now. We're just trying to carve out a nice niche for ourselves and hopefully some good horses will come our way. "
So far, their biggest success on the track has been The Awful Truth, who earned nearly $120,000 last season and won a division of the Exit 16W Series at the Meadowlands.
"We had a good year in 2009 with The Awful Truth," she said. "He made $100,000 for us and he's enjoying a little time off right now. We're hoping to sharpen him back up. He put up some big miles at both the Meadowlands and Yonkers, and he can certainly handle both tracks. He just started jogging back this week, and he'll qualify in few weeks."
(The Meadowlands)