The racing action at The Downs at Mohegan Sun Pocono will be brimming over with quality stakes events throughout the Memorial Day weekend, with three-year-old trotting colts racing in the Pennsylvania Sire Stakes on Saturday and the Stallion Series on Sunday, and three-year-old pacing colts contesting the first Pennsylvania All-Stars event of the year on Monday.
Saturday’s PASS contains two of the top five horses listed in The Meadowlands’ Countdown to the Hambletonian – You Know You Do and Fashionwoodchopper. You Know You Do, a winner of almost $375,000 at age two, makes his seasonal debut in the tenth race division; Fashionwoodchopper, the 2017 Pennsylvania Sire Stakes champion by winning over this very oval, goes one race later. Also in entered are Hockey Hanover, who achieved an unprecedented “double” last year when he won the PA Fair Championship and the PA Stallion Series Championship, and the four winners in the Sire Stakes’ first leg: Capt Morgan, Donatover, Moosonee, and Whats The Word.
All four winners in the Stallion Series' first leg will face the starting gate on Sunday: I Know My Rights, Joey, Lindys Big Bang, and Rich And Miserable. A very interesting newcomer to this Stallion Series crew will be Brothers N Arms, a full brother to Father Patrick and Brother Stephen who is trained by Jimmy Takter.
With the pacers taking over Monday, the PA All-Stars event may well be the best group based on a quality relative to total purse ($90,000) that you will find anywhere in North America. Dorsoduro Hanover, already a double Sire Stakes winner and just elevated to the #1 spot in the Road to the Meadowlands Pace evaluation, goes in the twelfth race division. In the contest just before that will come the long-awaited return of Done Well, who won all of his four starts in 2017 while looking the early cream of the crop, making his first start since an injury ended his freshman campaign almost ten months ago. Entered in race five is Wes Delight, who spoiled the early-season showdown between divisional standouts Lost For Words and Stay Hungry here last Saturday by winning a photo in a PASS division last Saturday.
The top stakes cards, each with fourteen races going to post, are all listed to be starting at 7:00 p.m.
(PHHA / Pocono)