The Father Patrick-Mazda Hanover gelding Pisces Rising completed a sweep of his three preliminary rounds of the Game Of Claims Trotting Series (GOC) at Pocono Downs at Mohegan Pocono on Tuesday, May 19 heading into next week's $35,000 USD GOC championship.
The track’s leading driver, Tyler Buter, gave Pisces Rising an aggressive drive from post seven in a bulky field of nine, leaving just enough to secure the pocket while there was a front-end duel. When favoured You Got It (George Napolitano Jr.) swept three-wide down the backstretch to the lead, no outer-tier horse could stay with him, so Buter backed Pisces Rising out of the pocket to follow the brusher. The two battled through the lane, and it was Pisces Rising who got his neck in front in 1:53.4 for trainer Richard Johnson and owner Guy Gemore. Water Torpedo (Anthony Napolitano) was third. The winning five-year-old is now 11-for-50 lifetime. He paid $8 to win.
The Napolitano brothers, Anthony and George Jr., equally divided the remaining four divisions of the GOC between themselves. Anthony scored with the only other horse to win more than once in the series, the five-year-old Mister Anson-Kaddy gelding Sir Maverick ($2.40), who was absent for the first leg but now has won two straight, including Tuesday’s 1:55.1 tally for trainer Frank Calcagni and owner Anastasia Meshkova.
George got the mile of a lifetime from Golazo ($7), a 1:53.2 career best for trainer-owner Jill Roland. “Golazo” in soccer is a spectacular goal, and the four-year-old son of International Moni-Desert Pepper did full justice to his name Tuesday.
Each brother also handled a winner who took their only GOC prelim start: George behind the six-year-old Father Patrick-Anywhere With You gelding Novel ($41.80), who posted a lifetime-best 1:54 score for trainer Peter Pellegrino and owner Tarja Butcher, and Anthony with the Pocono veteran P L Quinella ($7.20), a six-year-old Kadabra-P L Indyanaca gelding, who won in 1:55.3 for trainer Anthony Faulkner and owner Jaypaul Hoover.
Team Melander – driver Mattias and trainer Marcus – won with a pair of very well-bred horses who had fetched a combined $1.19 million at yearling auction, both of whose sires were stars for the Team. They scored with Noble Encore, a three-year-old daughter of Greenshoe out of 2017 Horse of the Year Hannelore Hanover who broke her maiden in 1:56.1, and Art Of The State, a sophomore daughter of Gimpanzee-Amour Heiress and thus a half-brother to Periculum, who set a new mark of 1:54.4.
Anthony Napolitano had four winners in all on the 14-race card to lead the drivers. Tyler Buter, Matt Kakaley, Mattias Melander, and George Napolitano Jr. had sulky doubles. Conditioners Marcus Melander and Marta Piotrow sent out two winners apiece.
Racing at Pocono resumes on Saturday at 1 p.m., with four $30,000 USD divisions of the Pennsylvania All-Stars for three-year-old trotting fillies.
(With files from PHHA/Pocono)