While ten of the continent's top sophomore pacers will face off for the $1 million Pepsi North America Cup this Saturday at Mohawk Racetrack, one of the colts many felt would be a factor but not entered was New Jersey Sire Stakes champ Katies Rocker.
In three starts this year, the son of Rocknroll Hanover was never out of the top three (1-1-1) and finished ahead of NA Cup elim winner Boston Red Rocks in his two most recent starts. On June 4, Katies Rocker was a 1:50.3 winner over a sloppy track in the $100,000 NJSS Final, prevailing over 1-9 favourite Boston Red Rocks by a neck despite racing first-over for the final three-eighths of a mile.
Jim Campbell, who trains the homebred for Jules Siegel's Fashion Farms LLC, told Trot Insider that the decision to bypass the North America Cup has nothing to do with the horse's current condition.
"The colt had five weeks in a row of fast miles at the Meadowlands," Campbell noted of Katies Rocker's season of training miles, qualifiers and races thus far. "The three-year-old schedule is every week up to mid-August, it's tough to race at that level every week...so we decided to stay home and prep for the Hempt and Meadowlands Pace."
A top ten selection in the 2016 Trot Magazine Pepsi North America Cup Spring Book, Katies Rocker (Rocknroll Hanover - Just Wait Kate) boasts a summary of 7-4-1 from 16 lifetime starts and more than $311,000 in purse earnings.