Less than a year after the tragic loss of their trotting star Modern Family, Daryl Bier and Charles Dombeck have found another diamond in the rough capable of taking on the best trotters on the continent...and possibly the world.
Red-hot five-year-old trotter Wind Of The North has been invited to the 2015 Elitloppet after he scored his third consecutive victory on Friday night (April 17) with a 1:52 mile in the Open Trot at The Meadowlands. His connections confirmed to Trot Insider that the invitation has been accepted.
Wind Of The North caught the interest of Elitloppet organizers in his recent races. He's three-for-three this month, posting a 1:52.3 victory at Dover Downs on April 1 and a 1:53.1 triumph at The Meadowlands on April 10 before matching the North American season's record for trotters on Friday.
Last June, Wind Of The North set a world record for four-year-old geldings on a five-eighths-mile track with his 1:51 triumph on the Sun Stakes Saturday card at Pocono Downs. The Cantab Hall-Talk To The Wind gelding was purchased late Fall by Bier and Charles' wife Joann. But that purchase almost didn't happen, as Bier and the Dombecks almost left the business following the sudden and tragic passing of Modern Family after the 2014 Maple Leaf Trot.
“My heart just wasn’t in it anymore after that loss, but Daryl kept telling me Wind Of The North could be just as good as Modern Family," Charles Dombeck told USTA's Kim French. "He had all the faith in the world in him, so (my wife) Joann was telling me to buy a piece of him. She also owned Special T Rocks and that’s when I told her, ‘why don’t you buy him?’ So she went in with Daryl and we are just going to see what he does this year."
Wind Of The North currently boasts a career record of 16 wins, 11 seconds and six thirds in 58 starts and purse earnings totalling $264,731.
The connections of North American trotting mare Maven have accepted an invitation to the Elitlopp, set for May 31 at Solvalla Racecourse, along with those of French trotter Timoko and Sweden's On Track Piraten and Digital Ink. Another US-based trotter, Meladys Monet was under consideration last month, but his connections graciously declined the offer.