Chapolier has now won every one of his nine 2025 starts at Pocono Downs at Mohegan Pennsylvania, making a hard trip from the outside post eight look easy as he scored in 1:54.3 over a track rated sloppy on Tuesday, May 6.
Tyler Buter, the track’s leading driver, saw the many of the usual prospective opportunists leaving quickly inside him and settled the Chapter Seven gelding in fourth as Macmorris Hanover, favoured in last week’s Game Of Claims Championship but this week 21-1 from post seven, hustled to the top in :27.4, then got a breather to the :57.4 half, at which point Chapolier and Buter went into grinding mode. The pair kept drawing closer and closer to the leader while covering his own third quarter in :27.3, reaching the three-quarters just a neck behind as the timer flashed in 1:26.1, with In My Dreams pocket-sitting and hoping for some luck.
Buter continued feeding his horse racetrack and Chapolier just kept gobbling it up, narrowing the margin to a head at the stretch call and then drawing off by 2-3/4 lengths seemingly effortlessly, with In My Dreams another length back in third. All of the first three finishers were claimed out of the feature, for a total outlay for the trio of $85,000 USD.
Chapolier has now been claimed seven times (total sum $198,000 USD) during his winning streak, showing amazing adaptability to constantly-changing surroundings (five different trainers in all). Three times he has been haltered and then raced by P T Stable and trainer Chris Oakes. Chapolier now goes back to owner Rocco Stebbins, from whom P T / Oakes took him in his previous start; the horse has earned over $90,000 in purses between Feb. 17 and May 6 at Pocono.
Buter also won the day’s co-feature, a $20,833 claiming handicap trot for horses just below the feature prices. Again he rallied his horse to overcome the uncovered route; here it was 10-1 shot Rose Run Elegant, a Rose Run Hooligan gelding who won in 1:54.4 before the rains came for trainer Susan Marshall, co-owner with John Marshall. Buter, who had three victories in all on Tuesday, completed the four-day week at Pocono with 14 trips to the winner's circle.
On Tuesday, though, he had to take a back seat to three-time defending Pocono driving champion Matt Kakaley, who brought home six winners, including four in a row mid-card over three different ratings in surface as the rain came in. The first five Kakaley wins were each for different trainers, while the sixth was his second collaboration with trainer Travis Alexander, the only conditioning doubler on the day.
Racing resumes at Pocono on Saturday, May 10 at 1 p.m., and the card will mark the start of the local stakes season for the best Pennsylvania-sired horses, as five $30,000 USD Pennsylvania All-Stars divisions of the “glamour boys,” the three-year-old pacing colts, kick off the local 2025 program. There will also be a carryover of $3,015 USD into the first race Superfecta.
(With files from PHHA / Pocono Downs)