Despite 26 degree temperatures, snowy conditions and an 11-degree wind chill, Noone To Depend On established a new track record of 1:51.4 for three-year-old pacing fillies on Friday night at Hollywood Dayton Raceway.
Recently purchased for $25,000 at the Harrisburg Mixed Sale by Stephen Herrick and Mark Bogen, the new track standard-bearer was making her third local start in a non-winners of 10 races with a $30,000 claiming tag (plus allowances, bringing Noone To Depend On’s sale price to $51,000).
Trainer/driver Kayne Kauffman, who picked the horse out for her new owners at Harrisburg, was impressed with her first two starts for him, including a 1:53.3 score in the same class a week ago.
“She showed me enough last week to think we might have something special, so I decided to test her a little more tonight because we’re going to have to move up in class now and I wanted to know if she’d be competitive. Despite the snow and cold, the track was in very good condition under the circumstances so I kept her rolling and she responded.”
Noone To Depend On is a daughter of Ontario sire Santanna Blue Chip. She now has 10 victories in her career and with her latest triumph moved within two thousand dollars of the $100,000 earnings plateau.
Halle Shark (Josh Sutton) and Cas Art Apparel (Chris Page) dead heated for the place position with Allthatjazzde Vie (Peter Wrenn) another short nose back in fourth.
The Fillies and Mares Open pacers stepped onto the track a race later with Aniston Seelster (Sutton) downing American Girl (Travis Seekman) and Albanian Era (Jeremy Smith) in 1:53.
The four-year-old daughter of Mach Three recently switched from the Ron Burke Stable to the Virgil Morgan, Jr. Stable, making an impressive debut from her new surroundings following a four-week furlough. Kara Witt owns Aniston Seelster, whose bankroll swelled to over $175,000 with the tally.
Racing resumes at Hollywood Dayton on Saturday, December 10, highlighted by the second annual six-race “Buckeyes vs. Hoosiers Driver’s Challenge.”
Leading Indiana drivers Trace Tetrick, Sam Widger, Ricky Macomber, Tyler Smith and Andy Shetler will face Ohio reinsmen Josh Sutton, Kayne Kauffman, Jeremy Smith, Dan Noble and Peter Wrenn for regional bragging rights. In the 2015 inaugural event, it took the Buckeyes until the final race to secure the team title on their home turf.
The real winners Saturday night, however, will be under privileged Dayton area children and a paramedic who manned the Dayton Raceway ambulance many of the nights during the track’s first two seasons, but suffered an unfortunate fall from a ladder earlier this year and is paralyzed from the waist down.
The ten drivers in the Buckeyes-Hoosiers contest have voted to donate their entire $2,500 prize pool to paramedic Crystal Wilson to help with her mounting rehabilitation costs.
Additionally, the drivers are urging fellow horsemen and patrons to bring new toys to the track for distribution before Christmas to need children in the Dayton Firefighters District 16, providers of the trackside ambulance on a nightly basis.
The Ohio Harness Horsemen’s Association has chipped in with a $1000 donation to be split between the firefighters toy drive and Ms. Wilson; and leading Dayton driver Josh Sutton has pledged all of his Saturday night driver commissions to the toy drive.
(Hollywood Dayton)