Trainer Don Swick couldn't help but be upbeat about the post position raw for his charge, Lonestar Legend, in Thursday's $551,225 Little Brown Jug. Lonestar Legend has Post 1 in the opening round's second heat.
"That was great," he said. "We usually draw bad in big races, but that as a dream come true."
Swick was also happy to see Atochia outside Lonestar Legend, in Post 4. Atochia beat Lonestar Legend for the Pennsylvania Sire Stakes championship on September 7 when he passed him late in the mile.
"That horse (Atochia) left around him and beat him off the gate from the outside at Chester, but the five-eighths track is a little tough to leave from the inside," Swick said. "I think probably at Chester in the middle of the field you almost have an advantage over a horse on the rail. It's hard to say, I'm sure they'll try to get around him (at Delaware) and I guess we'll just to wait and see what happens."
Swick thought Lonestar Legend might be more of a big track horse than he's turned out to be. All three of his wins this year have been on five-eighth tracks. His victories include a division of the Reynolds Stakes and a Pennsylvania Sire Stakes event. He was third in the Adios, behind Jug contenders Shadow Play and Major General, and has earned $175,320 this season.
"He qualified really well at the Meadowlands early this spring and we thought we were set really well to go to Canada," Swick said. "But when we got to Canada the first thing he did was draw the ten hole in the Burlington Stakes. We had to leave with him and he had a tendency last year to get really fired up once you started leaving with him. We weren't going to leave with him at all until pretty late this year.
"(Mohawk) turned out to be really the wrong track for him, that long homestretch. Even when David [driver Miller] backed him off the gate the next week, he wasn't as good, and then the last week, Mario [Baillargeon] really went down the road with him and that wasn't any good. So once we got him back to the five-eighths track, he seemed a lot happier."
The Jug will be Lonestar Legend's first start on a half-mile track, but Swick is not concerned.
"Our track at the Florida Trotting Center has pretty tight turns and he buzzes around them good," he said. "Turns don't bother him. He actually likes the turns a little more than the straightaways at times."
Lonestar Legend is in a good frame of mind coming in to the Jug.
"I would like to see him heavier, but he went through a pretty hard series through the middle of August (third in the Adios and seventh in the Battle of Brandywine). I purposely left him sit for three weeks before the Pennsylvania Sire Stakes final. We didn't even know if we were going to make that, because we were ninth in points. One horse hadn't raced and we got in that way. Otherwise, I would have had to find a place to race him."
Swick, who is an Ohio native, is happy to be going to the Jug with a fresh horse.
"As good as he was racing at Pocono and Chester earlier on, I made up my mind I was going to rest him up a little bit before now because from here out it's another long stretch," Swick said. "Mentally, he's really happy. He seems in a good mood. I didn't train him hard this week, but when I trained him, he was really bright and straighter. He can hang on one line or another for really no reason at all and this week he was really straight and bright and happy. He seemed like he was ready to go."
Lonestar Legends' owner, Bill Peshina's Royal Wire Products of Ohio, is joined in ownership by business colleague Bob Marzoli, under the name United Process Control.
"Royal Wire Products' biggest product is an air pollution product called bag cages," Swick said. "They go anywhere there is an industrial chimney, where smoke goes up and has to be filtered. They make a cage that filter bags are put over. United Process Company services those units. They were old business associates.
"Bill Peshina has never seen any of our big wins, but Marzoli has been there for all of them. About four years ago and Bill said, 'I've got a friend I'm going to bring in.' They got together and they got so lucky. They had Calgary Hanover and she won the Breeders Crown and he got to be there for his own."
(Harness Racing Communications)