You usually don’t see the phrases 'partial rainout' and 'the next day saw an all-age track record' in the same sentence, but both activities happened at the Dayton Fair during its Sunday-Monday meet, as a washout of all two-year-old 'A' paces and all 'B' action in the sire stakes on Sunday were followed by something very special.
Nome Hanover, a Well Said sophomore gelding trained and driven by Todd Schadel, stunned the horsemen’s community by going out Monday and bettering the all-time pacing standard at the west-central Pennsylvania twice-around with a 1:57.2 mile, knocking two-fifth’s of a second off of JT Arturo’s 18-year-old mark. The fractions in the historic mile were :29.1, :58.4, and 1:27.2 as Nome Hanover won for the third time on the 2020 fair circuit for the ownership of Todd Schadel, Timothy Hayes and Dr. Megan Moschgat.
Roger Hammer, who had driven JT Arturo in his record mile, won the other “A” pace with the streaking Artspeak gelding Bipbopnallie in 2:03.3, with Hammer trainer/driver for the winner of six straight since coming to the fairs for LeBlanc Racing Inc., Count De Money Stable, and William Lutz, Jr.
Schadel had opened the day with the fastest trotting mile of the stand, a 2:03.1 win with the Andover Hall gelding Manhattanup No Ice, whom he owns, trains, and drove.
Dream Dancing, a defending champion in the pacing fillies section, also fashioned a 2:00 mile Monday, the daughter of A Rock N Roll Dance scoring in 1:59.4 for the owning partnership of driver Dave Brickell and trainer Mitchell York.
Driver Shawn Johnston and trainer/part-owner Rick Beinhauer swept the sophomore trotting filly “A” events, with the Yankee Glide filly Caramel Macchiato in 2:04.2 (Beinhauer co-owns this one with Regina Beinhauer), and then coming back with the Muscle Massive filly Furious Fast, now a five-time fair winner for Rick Beinhauer and co-owner Ronnie Stamm.
Beinhauer and Johnston had also taken two of the freshman trotting filly sections before bad weather washed out much of the Sunday card. The winning babies, both daughters of Explosive Matter owned by Rick and Regina Beinhauer, were Explosive Flower (dam Seeuinthespring) and From Now On (dam Focus On Me). The pair now has nine fair wins between them, and helped propel their driver and trainer to the top of the categories at Dayton, with Shawn guiding six winners and Beinhauer harnessing four.
Fastest of the baby male trotters was the Creatine–The Yankee Wins colt Swing Batter Swing, home in 2:05 for owner/trainer/driver Roger Hammer while establishing a PA fairs’ season’s record.
The Pennsylvania fair circuit, now doing double-time after being backed up by the virus, will be racing at York this Thursday and Friday at 1 p.m.
(PFHHA/MSOA/PHHA)