Jim Campbell is ready for a busy weekend with his female trotters. It begins Friday when two-time Dan Patch Award-winner Broadway Donna makes her debut as a four-year-old and it continues Saturday with a trio of three-year-old fillies competing at The Meadows in Pennsylvania Sire Stakes action.
After capturing Dan Patch Award honours at ages two and three, Broadway Donna begins her four-year-old campaign against mostly male rivals in a conditioned race at the Meadowlands. Broadway Donna is 6-1 on the morning line in a seven-horse field that includes Dayson (2-1), Opulent Yankee (5-2), B Yoyo (4-1) and Market Share (5-1).
Only two female trotters in history have received Dan Patch Awards at ages two, three and four: CR Kay Suzie and Peace Corps.
Broadway Donna has won 16 of 22 career races and earned $1.19 million for breeder/owner Fashion Farms. She finished last season with a four-race win streak that included victories in the Kentucky Filly Futurity and Breeders Crown for three-year-old filly trotters.
“She seems good,” Campbell said about Broadway Donna, a daughter of 2007 Horse of the Year Donato Hanover out of the Dan Patch Award-winning Broadway Schooner. “We’re hoping she comes back and races how she did to finish last year. She really had it all put together.”
Broadway Donna and Dayson are eligible to the Graduate Series for four-year-old trotters, which begins May 20 at the Meadowlands.
“We didn’t put (Broadway Donna) in against the boys other than the Graduate,” Campbell said. “The rest is all the mares’ races. We’ll just play it by ear and see how it goes.”
Campbell’s three fillies in Pennsylvania are open stakes-winner Onda Su, Broadway Idole, and Donato Fashion.
Onda Su, who is one-for-one this year, won a division of the Bluegrass Stakes last year at Lexington’s Red Mile. She made 12 starts in 2016 and went offstride in six of them. In the remaining six races, she posted three victories and a total of five top-three finishes.
The filly is owned by Frederick Schwartz, Shirley Schwartz, and ONDA Racing Stable.
“She has ability, but she’s also messed up more times than she needs to,” Campbell said. “A lot of it is mental. She gets herself worked up. She can test your patience. I’ve had a few horses grow out of it over the years, so I’m hoping she falls into that category.”
Onda Su, a daughter of Muscle Massive out of Upfront OBs Janet, will compete in the first of four Pennsylvania Sire Stakes divisions Saturday and is 6-1 on the morning line. She defeated a field that included four-year-old male rivals in her 2017 debut, winning by one and three-quarter lengths over Multitaskr Hanover in 1:57.1 at Harrah’s Philadelphia.
“She was real good in her last race,” Campbell said. “We just hope she continues with that. She’s got ability, so I’m just hoping her manners stay in check and we’ll see how it goes from there.”
Broadway Idole also is one-for-one this year. Last season, the daughter of Broadway Hall-Idole Normand won once in 12 races, but earned $135,266 thanks to second-place finishes in divisions of the Bluegrass and International Stallion stakes plus fourth-place finishes in the Jim Doherty Memorial and Pennsylvania Sire Stakes championship.
“She was good last year,” Campbell said. “It’s a tough group and it was a real tough group of two-year-olds last year. She got money in with some of the better ones. She’s got a nice gait and gets over the ground good. We’re hoping for a nice year with her.”
Broadway Idole, bred and owned by Fashion Farms, is a full sister to 2011 Pennsylvania Sire Stakes champion Stormin Normand. She is in the third of the Pennsylvania Sire Stakes divisions and is 7-2 on the morning line.
“She’s got a little pedigree behind her,” Campbell said. “She’s got the gait and the speed; I’m hoping she can carry her speed a little further this year.”
Donato Fashion has two second-place finishes this season and won one of nine starts last year. Another filly bred and owned by Fashion Farms, she is a daughter of Donato Hanover out of the 2009 Pennsylvania Sire Stakes champion Fashion Feline.
“She raced real good her first start this year,” Campbell said. “She raced good her second start, she was second, but I thought she maybe should have won. We scoped her afterward and she bled a little, so she’s racing her first start on Lasix. Hopefully that will help her.”
Donato Fashion is in the fourth division of the Pennsylvania Sire Stakes and is 8-1 on the morning line.
The morning line favorites in each division, beginning with the first, are Dirk Simpson’s Dangle Then Deke (5-2), Charlie Norris’ Treviso (2-1), Jimmy Takter’s Princess Aurora (5-2), and John Butenschoen’s Fine Tuned Lady (5-2). All were stakes winners last year. Fine Tuned Lady was the Pennsylvania Sire Stakes champion.
“It’s a good group of fillies,” Campbell said. “There are a lot of them, and a lot of them that can go fast, too. It’s a pretty exceptional group. Everybody’s got to come back (to top form this year). I’ve had some success with that and I’ve had some disappointments too. But I’m happy with the way they’ve come back so far.”
This story courtesy of Harness Racing Communications, a division of the U.S. Trotting Association. For more information, visit www.ustrotting.com.