Coming into the richest race of the young season at Pocono Downs at Mohegan Pennsylvania, the $69,444 Championship of the Bobby Weiss Pacing Series for three-year-old males, five of the eight entrants had won two of their three Weiss preliminaries. Yet winning the Championship was the only horse who waited until the final prelim before getting a series success – the Heston Blue Chip colt Charge Me Up, who got the job done in a lifetime best 1:51.3.
Excluding a trot, the average clocking of a Saturday (April 19) Pocono race would have looked like this: :27, :56.2, 1:23.3, 1:52, the wind on the warm day reflected in the fractions’ pattern. So the feature certainly went true to form, as splits of :26.4, :55.4, and 1:22.4 were put up by second choice Ooglesville, with Charge Me Up (favoured from the rail despite not winning until the final prelim) right behind him in the pocket and the rest of the field, a couple of whom had trouble early, not in the main action the last three-eighths. The winner pulled out near headstretch and outfooted the pacesetter to tally by 3-1/4 lengths.
The Weiss Championship was the richest race in a giant afternoon for Charge Me Up’s connections – driver Tim Tetrick, trainer Nicholas Devita, and owners David Hamm and Glenn Phillips. Not only did they win the Weiss Championship for males, they also won the group’s consolation, and in the same time of 1:51.3. The Huntsville gelding Dune Buggy came from seventh under patented Tetrick second-over handling, winning by two lengths in breaking his maiden for the same sponsorship as Charge Me Up, with Devita Racing Stable Inc. sharing in this one’s ownership.
And the afternoon’s riches didn’t stop there for the Team, as there were four $27,778 second preliminary divisions of the parallel Weiss Series for fillies, and the Cattlewash filly Albright became one of three misses to win her second straight in this Weiss grouping, just missing her mark with a 1:53.1 pacesetting clocking for the Charge Me Up gang. Tetrick would have a fourth stakes triumph (he won five races on the day overall) when he got the In The Arsenal filly Defamation to break her maiden in 1:55 for trainer Jeffrey Smith and owners Joseph and Steven Williams.
The other double Weiss winners among the distaff set, both establishing new marks, included the fastest winner, the front-ending Strutsville, who won by a nose over big favourite Allegra Hanover in 1:52 for driver Ridge Warren, trainer Ron Coyne Jr., and owners Nancy Retzlaff and Douglas Stout while giving Huntsville the only stakes siring double, and Sweet Odds, a Sweet Lou filly who was a pocket rocket in 1:53.1 for driver Jason Bartlett, trainer Per Engblom, and Morrison Racing Stables.
Just as the pacers were featured on Saturday, this coming Monday’s (April 21) 1 p.m. card at Pocono will highlight Weiss Series trotters, with the males going into their $50,000 USD Championship and the females racing in three $20,000 USD divisions of their third and last prelim. There will also be a carryover going into the fourth race Pick 3 wager.
(PHHA / Pocono)