Roger Hammer, “King of the Pennsylvania Fairs,” had five horses he owns, trains, and drove visit Victory Lane during the two-day Pennsylvania Fair Sire Stakes event at Dayton over the weekend – and lost the seasonal driving lead to Chris Shaw, who guided five winners on both two-year-old Saturday and three-year-old Sunday for a total of 10 wins in all.
Six of Chris Shaw’s winners were strictly “all in the family” affairs – driven by him for trainer/brother Jason and owner/nephew Mason, himself only three but likely to be able to pick the college and even program of his choice with all of this “college tuition” money that Team Shaw keeps winning.
Among the Team Shaw sextet of victories was one with Tropical Terror, the Western Terror filly who in 2014 led all of North America’s freshmen with 16 victories. On Sunday she toured the Dayton twice-around in 2:02.3, fastest heat in her division, tacking on a :29.3 last quarter to her wire-to-wire triumph.
Two sophomore colts went in 2:01 to tie for meet speed honours. One was R N Nate, a Nuclear Breeze gelding who had earlier set a 2:01 divisional track record at Butler for breeder/owner/trainer/driver Hammer. The other was Royaltyhasarrived, already author of a fair 2:00 mile via his 1:59.1 triumph at Gratz and the “eraser” of R N Nate in the Dayton books when later in the day he went 2:00.4. “Royalty” was king in his Dayton outing for driver Brady Brown, who had an excellent Sunday with four victories; trainer Steve Schoeffel, who provided Brown with three of his winners; and owners Virginia and Kathy Schoeffel and Michael Munn.
Trotting speed honours for the meet went to the Muscle Massive filly Missive, another Brown/Schoeffel collaboration who earlier had also erased a line in the track record book at Butler. Sunday she traversed the local twice-around in 2:04 on the engine for the Lander Stable LLC and Kathy Schoeffel.
On the two-year-old side, generating the most “buzz” is still the Nuclear Breeze-B T Falcon gelding Billys Falcon, who had won in 1:59.4 at Gratz. Only Saturday Billys Falcon moved early and won by a country mile, here translating to 18-3/4 lengths, in posting the fastest Dayton freshman clocking of 2:03.1 as yet another success story for owner/breeder/trainer/driver Hammer.
The PA fair circuit now moves to Hughesville for cards on Wednesday and Thursday. When the circuit arrives at that midstate town not too far from the Little League World Series home of Williamsport, the top five trainers and drivers for the 2015 PA fair season to date will look like this:
Driver: Chris Shaw, 23; Roger Hammer, 21; Brady Brown, 11; Steve Schoeffel, 6; and tied with 5, Shawn Johnston and Wayne Long (who got four of those at Dayton).
Trainers: Roger Hammer 21; Jason Shaw 17 (he had seven in all at Dayton); Steve Schoeffel 12; Bill Daugherty Jr., 5; and tied with 4, Lisa Dunn-Adams, Kevin Lare, and Todd Schadel.
(Pennsylvania Fair Harness Horsemen’s Association)