$224,000 worth of Pennsylvania All-Stars events for Keystone-sired three-year-old pacers will highlight the weekend action at The Downs at Mohegan Sun Pocono, with three divisions of colts in the Saturday spotlight and four sections of fillies set to go Sunday.
Among the horses to watch in Saturday’s colt racing will be the very first horse to set foot on the Pocono track in post parade that night, Yankee Bounty in the first race, who will start from post two for Team Burke (though he will be wearing HN1 as part of a mutuel entry, hence “the first horse to set foot…”). The PA Sire Stakes Champion at two, here making his seasonal bow, Yankee Bounty also shows a second-place finish to divisional star In The Arsenal and a record of 8 wins in 10 starts.
The 2-3 finishers in that 2014 Sires Final are matched up in the fifth race third division: second (by a nose) Tomy Terror, starting from post four for trainer John Butenschoen and driver Mike Simons, and Cooperstown, just inside him for Burke and driver Matt Kakaley (who is listed on both halves of the Burke entry in race 1). The third race division is topped by Blood Brother (post two, trainer Jimmy Takter, driver Yannick Gingras), second in a Governor’s Cup elim at two and an impressive winner in his 2015 bow at Harrah’s.
The Sunday night patrons may have things a bit easier in handicapping the filly action, as the Pennsylvania Sire Stakes and Pennsylvania Stallion Series both had their first seasonal legs at The Meadows this past weekend, and the winners of all three divisions of both events are in to go Sunday, save one Sire Stake winner, Serious Filly – and her trainer, defending Jugette champion Brian Brown, has ample representation here in Triple V Hanover and Somewhere Sweet, both second last week.
The other Sire Stake winners, Safe From Terror and Storm Point, are both from the Burke Stable, as is Southwind Roulette, who won the Sires divisional championship at two. Stallion Series winners Dobre Povedane, Mezzanine Fashion, and Angel Plus will thus be taking a crucial stepup in company while testing the waters in the All-Stars, whose races will go in the 1, 3, 5, and 10-slots Sunday.
(PHHA/Pocono)