Both Mohawk Racetrack and The Meadowlands carded solid slates of baby races on Saturday morning with trainers Blake MacIntosh and Jimmy Takter each sending out a handful of winners.
Mohawk's first full session of two-year-old qualifiers featured 10 races with trainer Blake MacIntosh capturing half. His parade of winning rookies started in the second qualifier of the morning with Jody Jamieson guiding Ubettergo Go to a solid 1:57.1 mile. The daughter of Art Major out of the stakes and open class winner U Bettorthink Think was a $13,000 Harrisburg yearling sale purchase for MacIntosh, Wayne MacIntosh and Reg Petitpas.
Stablemate Terem A New One (Chris Christoforou) also turned heads with a :27 closing quarter to get up for a 1:57.4 score in his debut for Karl & Joyce Empey and Got To Ask Stables. The son of Sportswriter-Armbro Bailey was a $29,000 yearling plucked from the Forest City sale.
MacIntosh concluded his impressive rookie parade with pacing fillies Thats What I Said (Jody Jamieson) winning in 1:57.1, Come Get The Cash (Drury) tripping the timer in 1:58.3 and pacing colt Courtly Choice (Christoforou) successful in an identical time but with a charted final quarter of :26.1.
The fastest pacing mile of the morning came from Trump That with an authoritative 1:55.4 victory. Driver Jody Jamieson teamed with trainer David Menary, who purchased the son of Somebeachsomewhere - Michelle My Gal from the Lexington Selected Yearling Sale for $80,000. Michael Guerriero, Kenneth Ewen and Bruce Norris co-own.
On the trotting side, Canale Hanover made the biggest splash of the morning with a 12-plus length romp. Driver Anthony MacDonald engineered a gate-to-wire score in 1:59 for trainer-wife Amy MacDonald and The Stable CH Group of Guelph, Ont. From the family of star trotter Supergrit, Canale Hanover (Donato Hanover - Celebrity Nike) was a $15,000 Harrisburg yearling sale purchase.
Saturday’s Meadowlands baby races began at 10 a.m. on a cloudy morning with slight stretch headwinds and temperatures in the low 70’s. The trotting races were the Yannick Gingras show as the Grand Circuit's top driver swept all six, hooking up with trainer Jimmy Takter on five of those.
Trotting fillies opened the day with a nice looking Chapter Seven filly named Sevenbuyeleven winning gate to wire in 1:58 with a :28 final quarter for Gingras. Linda Toscano trains the $50,000 Harrisburg buy for owner Kenny Jacobs. Natalie Hanover (Ake Svanstedt) was second and Dab Hanover (Jimmy Takter / Mattias Melander) third.
Gingras came right back to win Race 2 for Takter with Bella Glos, a Cantab Hall filly that cost Black Horse Racing $95,000 at Harrisburg last fall. She led at every call and finished well in hand through a :28 end to her 1:57.2 mile. A pair of fillies from the Svanstedt barn followed, Vivacious Allie (Svanstedt) second and Lucky Ava third.
Gingras' reign with the fairer sex continued in Race 3 with another Takter trainee. Air Quote Hanover cut the 1:57.4 mile, sprinting home in :27.4 under her own power. This one is a daughter of Donato Hanover the was a $70,000 Harrisburg purchase for Order By Stables last fall. Svanstedt was again second best, this time with What A Knockout.
Go To Hill, a $350,000 Lexington purchase by Lennart Agrin’s SRF Stable was an impressive winner for the Gingras/Takter combo with a front-end 1:59.1 win, final quarter in :29. The Muscle Hill colt opened a considerable lead mid-stretch then coasted in on his own. Spee Club closed up nicely as Svanstedt’s futile pursuit of Takter ran to three in a row.
Go To Hill wins his June 10 qualifier at The Meadowlands
Hill Street continued the mastery for Takter and Gingras with a 2:00.4 win. Yannick evidenced why he is in such demand with the youngsters as the agressive son of Muscle Hill wanted to go forward right from the start. Gingras had other ideas and wrangled him into fourth early through the slow :31.2 quarter. Things did not speed up much down the backside despite Svanstedt moving his $200,000 colt Sonofamillionaire to the top in 1:02.2 as Yannick edged his charge out of fourth to settle in second behind that one. That was the order through the 1:32.3 third panel, where Gingras fanned his trotter off the leader's back and Hill Street trotted on by through a :28.1 last quarter to get the win. Ray Schnittker closed up nicely with his Chasin Dreams to lose in a photo while Ake had to settle for third this time. The partnership of Brixton Medical, Fielding, Liverman and Hatfield own the $180,000 Lexington buy.
The final piece of the trotting baby sweep for Gingras was with Takter’s Andover Hall colt Storming Mist. The $120,000 Lexington purchase sat a comfortable pocket behind Fourth Dimension (Marcus Melander) through easy fractions and went by willingly through a :28.1 end to the 1:59.3 mile to hold off the closing Six Pack (Svanstedt). Brixton Medical, Fielding, Liverman and RAW Equine share ownership of Storming Mist.
There were only two races for pacers, fillies first and Hurrikane Shorty was the winner in 1:56.3 for Jimmy Marohn, Jr. The pair had the early lead, released eventual second-place finisher Dance Blue (Gingras) through the middle fractions then brushed by in the stretch through a :27.2 final quarter. John McDermott trains the Art Major filly, a $8,000 Goshen Sale purchase for Jonathan Klee, Pegasis Investments and GR Vierno.
JK Musicman took the colt pace from just off the pace in 1:56. Damion Diesel Hahn (Schnittker) cut the fractions and held up until mid-stretch then gave way first to the winner, then Major Sugar Rush snuck by very late for the place. JK Musicman is a homebred American Ideal trained by Nancy Johansson for the 3 Brothers Stables.
To view the full charts from Saturday morning's qualifiers, click one of the following links:
► Saturday Baby Races - Mohawk Racetrack
► Saturday Baby Races - Meadowlands
(with files from The Meadowlands)