Hannelore Hanover is ready to get back on the racetrack, and trainer Ron Burke thinks harness racing’s defending Horse of the Year is entering her upcoming campaign feeling as good as she did at the end of last season.
And that was pretty darn good.
The six-year-old female trotter closed 2017 with a three-race win streak that included the Breeders Crown Open Trot, which made her the first mare since Moni Maker in 1998 to claim the trophy, and the lady’s division of the TVG Series championships. Two weeks prior to beginning her streak, Hannelore Hanover recorded the fastest mile in history by a female trotter when she captured the Allerage Farms Open Trot in 1:49.2.
On Saturday morning, Hannelore Hanover will qualify at the Meadowlands Racetrack with regular driver Yannick Gingras as she prepares for the Arthur J. Cutler Memorial, which will take place on May 5 at the ‘Big M.’
“Everything seems really good,” Burke said. “She feels like the way she felt at the end of the year last year, so I’m happy with that. Right at the end of the year she finally put it together. She was winning, but didn’t feel right. By the end of the year, she got herself sounder, sharper.
“This year right from the get-go she seems better, stronger. I’m hoping last year carries over into this year.”
Hannelore Hanover won 10 of 17 races last year, finished second five times, and earned over $1 million for owners Burke Racing Stable, the Weaver Bruscemi partnership, Frank Baldachino, and J&T Silva Stables. For her career, the daughter of Swan For All out of High Sobriety has won 36 of 58 races and more than $2.6 million.
Burke said Hannelore Hanover did not change much during the winter.
“She is who she is now at this point in her career,” he said.
Before Hannelore Hanover makes her pari-mutuel debut in the 2018 Cutler, she has one more piece of business to finish up -- a date in the breeding shed with Southwind Frank. Burke told Trot Insider that the previously-announced plans to attempt to breed Hannelore Hanover to Southwind Frank and then transfer the embryo to a recipient mare are still on the table.
"We've got like a two-week window where we might be able to get it done. And if not, then we're not," said Burke.
Hannelore Hanover is one of 14 horses from the Burke Brigade that will qualify Saturday. Among those joining her will be six-year-old male trotter Crazy Wow and five-year-old male pacer Check Six, both multiple stakes-winners last season; 2017 Little Brown Jug winner Filibuster Hanover; three-year-old male trotter U Need Stones, a New Jersey Sire Stakes champion; three-year-old male pacer Seeing Eye Single, an Ohio Sire Stakes champion; and four-year-old male pacer Rock N Tony, an Indiana Sire Stakes champion who joined Burke’s barn in November.
“Right now I’m happy with everybody,” Burke said. “Hopefully it will be a good year.”
Others entered to qualify Saturday include multiple Dan Patch Award-winning female trotter Broadway Donna, multiple O’Brien Award-winning female trotter Caprice Hill, stakes-winning male trotters International Moni, Lindy The Great, and Yes Mickey, stakes-winning male pacers Blood Line, Im A Big Deal, This Is The Plan, Pedro Hanover, and Closing Statement, stakes-winning female pacers Darlinonthebeach, Blue Moon Stride, and Reign On Me and stakes-winning filly trotter Plunge Blue Chip.
Qualifiers will begin at 10 a.m. (EDT).
(USTA)