The Gimpanzee-Shes Gone Again filly Concise completed a sweep of the Bobby Weiss Series for three-year-old trotting fillies as she captured her $68,493 championship on Tuesday, April 28 at Pocono Downs at Mohegan Pennsylvania.
After letting Aviatrix Blue Chip (Jason Bartlett) take the field to the quarter in :27.3, Concise and Todd McCarthy retook command and got a breather to a :58 half. From that point, there was no relaxing, as I Take The Care (George Napolitano Jr.) challenged the leader to a 1:25.1 three-quarters, and when that foe faded, Aviatrix Blue Chip came on to try the favourite again. But Concise dug in and Aviatrix Blue Chip came up short by a length to the 1:54.3 lifetime-best winning time posted by the winner. Allioop Blue Chip (Andrew McCarthy) was third.
Trained by Nik Drennan for Joseph Davino of Clarksburg, New Jersey, Brad Shackman of Calgary, Alta., and Drennan Stable of Allentown, New Jersey, Concise was the only four-time winner among all the divisions of the Weiss. Her four Weiss starts comprise her total output for the year, and she has won five of six lifetime trips to the gate. The win price was $4.
In a $27,397 Weiss consolation for the trotting fillies, the E L Titan-Dr Sandy miss B Eyelash ($3.20) also proved worthy of being backed as the favourite, posting a lifetime mark of 1:56.3 in winning for driver Braxten Boyd, trainer Jenny Melander and owner Exceed Stables of Lamar, Pennsylvania. B Eyelash won by 3-1/2 lengths while coming home in :57.1.
The pacing fillies also raced their $68,493 Weiss championship on the Tuesday card, with no entrant having two preliminary wins but six of the eight having won one prelim round. Posting her second Weiss success at the optimal moment was the American Ideal-Queso Relleno filly American Cheese, who posted a 1:51.1 lifetime-best mile while winning as the second choice.
Scott Zeron, in his only drive at Pocono on Tuesday, worked out a two-hole trip for American Cheese behind fractions of :27, :56.2 and 1:23.2 set by Vanna By The River (Braxten Boyd). American Cheese then headed to the Pocono Pike and beat out the pacesetter by a half-length, with favoured Sicerto (Tim Tetrick) another half-length back.
Jared Bako conditions the winner, now three-for-five this season after a zero-for-eight rookie campaign, for Blue Chip Bloodstock of Wallkill, New York and Philip Steinberg of Weston, Florida. The winner returned $7.80.
Tyler Buter, top Pocono driver in 2025 and again so far in 2026, won the last race of the 14-race card to take Tuesday’s honours with three victories, including two sent out by the day’s only doubling trainer, John Butenschoen. Also visiting victory lane twice were sulky-sitters Braxten Boyd, Todd McCarthy and George Napolitano Jr.
Thoroughbred racing’s most famous race, the Kentucky Derby from Churchill Downs, will be preceded this Saturday, May 2 by a 1 p.m. card of live Standardbred racing at Pocono.
(With files from PHHA/Pocono)