Fashion Green, who has launched his career with three straight victories — including a pair of stakes wins — will try to extend his unbeaten streak in Friday’s $160,336 USD Pennsylvania Sires Stakes leg for freshman colt and gelding trotters, known as the Florida Pro, at Hollywood Casino at The Meadows.
The card also features an $80,000 USD PA Stallion Series leg. First post is 5:10 p.m.
Fashion Green looked nothing if not precocious in grabbing a Sire Stakes split at The Meadows, where he took his mark of 1:55.2, and a Pennsylvania All-Stars division at Pocono Downs. But his trainer, new U.S. Hall of Fame inductee Jim Campbell, notes that his path to early success has had twists and turns.
“He broke in like a really nice colt and did everything we wanted him to,” said Campbell. “Then he started messing up a bit, making breaks for no reason and not paying attention to his work. That’s when we decided to geld him. He’s come back really nicely from that. He’s pretty easygoing and drama free.”
Fashion Green is a homebred son of Greenshoe out of the Broadway Hall mare Fashion Athena, who won the Kentucky Futurity at two en route to $308,290 in lifetime earnings. Moreover, Fashion Athena produced Millies Possesion, who wowed the harness world at three — her only year on the track — by opening her career with nine consecutive wins before finishing second in the Hambletonian Oaks.
That strong family is what persuaded Campbell and owner Jules Siegel of Fashion Farms to keep the colt and race him rather than send him through the auction ring.
“Fashion Athena has been a really good producer — we’ve trained most of her foals — so there was no doubt we would keep him and train him.”
Known for his conservative approach to bringing young horses along, Campbell has mapped out just such a campaign for Fashion Green.
“I always take it one step at a time,” he said. “Right now we’ll follow through on the PA Sires trail and see how that goes. He has some major stakes in the fall, but we’ll see how he’s doing.”
Fashion Green goes from post six, race eight, with Dave Palone aboard.
The other division of the Florida Pro goes as race nine and features local phenom Wapiti Blue Chip, who, on July 12, became the fastest two-year-old gelding trotter ever at The Meadows when he triumphed in 1:54.2 for Braxten Boyd. Boyd again will be in the sulky for trainer Mahlon Martin and owners Ashley Berslem, Steven Mullen and Gregory Garton.
(Meadows Standardbred Owners Association)