Not there ever a bad time to be racing well, but for Rockin In Heaven, he’s certainly picked a dandy time to get good.
The three-year-old son of Rock N Roll Heaven looms a player Saturday night, with Yonkers Raceway hosting the New York Night of Champions (Part I). Four, $225,000 sire stakes finals of soph boys and girls, pacers and trotters go as races 5 through 8 (first post 7:10 p.m.), with each race sponsored by a prominent Empire State breeding farm.
Rockin In Heaven landed post position two in the last of the quartet, Blue Chip Farms Pace. Dr. Ian Moore, the man behind the likes of Shadow Play and State Treasurer, co-owns (with Douglas Polley, Francois Lecomte and Gordon McComb) and trains. The Good Doctor has imported one of Ontario’s leading chauffeurs, Trevor Henry, for a rare Yonkers appearance.
According to the U.S. Trotting Association’s Anne Chunko, Henry has one previous career Westchester work night, a 2010 excursion driving an eight-hole, 90-1 shot (Quantum Cashman) in a NYSS event.
So, why is Henry crossing the border Saturday?
Because Rockin In Heaven is good. He enters with three wins in his last four starts, including an 11-1 upset in the $290,000 final of the Empire Breeders Classic (Tioga, life-best 1:50). Henry himself did the recent honours, a wire-to-wire, 1:53 NYSS effort at Batavia where he was parked three-deep making the lead.
“He’s a nice horse,” Henry said en route to Mohawk Thursday night. “He can be lazy and he never wins by much, but he’s progressed.
“When Ian (Moore) first started with him, he said he couldn’t get a lot out of him,” Henry added. “I think it wasn’t until his win in (June’s division of the) Somebeachsomewhere (Mohawk, 1:50.3) that we finally started to see the sort of colt he was.”
Enough to get his driver to cross customs, at the very least.
For the season, Rockin In Heaven - a $40,000 Harrisburg yearling - has eight wins, four seconds and a third in 15 starts ($310,565). His current form spree began here, sticking his tongue out at the wire in an $84,187 NYSS sire stakes division early last month.
Rockin In Heaven has certainly learned his craft well after a three-win, $14,000-plus season as a frosh.
New York Night of Champions (Part II), with four, $225,000 sire stakes finals for the two-year-olds, goes Saturday, Sept. 26th. This is the first-time in the NOC’s 26-season history that it has been a two-night production.
(Yonkers Raceway)