Renowned pacer Foiled Again is a perfect 10 this season – as in an undefeated 10-year-old – and now trotting star Arch Madness is getting ready to try to join him.
The 10-year-old Arch Madness won a qualifier last weekend at the Meadowlands in 1:54.3 and will return to the Big M on Saturday for another prep for the upcoming campaign.
Last year, Arch Madness won three of 18 races and earned $425,427 for trainer/driver Trond Smedshammer and owners Willow Pond LLC and Marc Goldberg, who also were among the trotter’s breeders. He won the Allerage Farms Open Trot at the Red Mile in Lexington, finished second overseas in Sweden’s prestigious Elitlopp, and was third in the Breeders Crown.
Arch Madness has won 34 of 107 starts and became the ninth trotter in history to surpass $4 million in career earnings when he won the Allerage. A week earlier, he won the Allerage elimination race with a 1:50.2 mile, a time that equalled his own world record for the fastest ever by a male trotter older than age four.
“He’s going to qualify again, but I was happy with the first qualifier,” Smedshammer said. “We’ll go again on Saturday and then we’ll start racing. He’s a year older, but it doesn’t seem like he’s changed at all.”
Arch Madness’ first stakes race is slated to be the Arthur J. Cutler Memorial at the Meadowlands. Eliminations are scheduled for May 10 and the $180,000 (estimated) final is May 17. Another trip to the Elitlopp, where Arch Madness has twice been the runner-up, is not in the works.
“He’s going to need a start before the Cutler, a couple starts maybe, somewhere around here,” Smedshammer said. “We have no plans at all (to go to Sweden). But he seems fine.”
This story courtesy of Harness Racing Communications, a division of the U.S. Trotting Association. For more information, visit www.ustrotting.com.