Friday’s stakes-filled card at Harrah’s Hoosier Park features many of harness racing’s big names — including Top 10-ranked Gimpanzee and Atlanta — but it includes only one undefeated horse. That’s Somethingbeautiful.
Somethingbeautiful is 6-for-6 this season for trainer Dylan Davis and driver LeWayne Miller, winning every start by a minimum of a length. She has faced Indiana-sired foes exclusively to this point, but on Friday tries the Grand Circuit when she competes in the $220,000 Kentuckiana Stallion Management Stakes for two-year-old female pacers.
Test Of Faith, the once-beaten Brett Pelling-trained New York Sire Stakes champion, is the 9-5 morning-line favourite. Somethingbeautiful is the 5-2 second choice.
“There are some nice fillies in there, but I think she can go with them,” Miller said. “It will be a nice test for her. But she’s been facing some good fillies here too. She’s been very nice. Her versatility and her maturity for being a 2-year-old, she’s very good that way.”
Somethingbeautiful is by Always A Virgin out of Summer N Sand. She is a half-sister to Shnitzledosomethin, a now 5-year-old who was a Breeders Crown runner-up in 2017 and has earned $778,503 in his career. She was purchased for $30,000 at the Hoosier Sale and is owned by Howard Taylor, Ed Gold, Abraham Basen, and Richard Lombardo. The same group owns Shnitzledosomethin.
The filly opened eyes when she qualified for the first time, winning in 1:58.3 with a last quarter of :25.4. In her six races, Somethingbeautiful has won from both off the pace and gate-to-wire, and kicked home in 27 seconds or faster in every start.
“She really impressed me from the start,” Miller said. “The only thing that surprises me is how easily she does it sometimes. She’s a fighter. Her last start, I thought she was going to get beat, but when those fillies came to her she just took off again.
“I think her potential is very high. I feel like she can compete with the best fillies out there.”
In addition to the Kentuckiana for two-year-old filly pacers, Hoosier hosts the $150,000 Caesars Trotting Classic for older trotters, the $140,000 Harrah’s Hoosier Park Pacing Derby for older pacers, $100,000 Jenna’s Beach Boy for three-year-old male pacers, $105,000 Moni Maker for three-year-old filly trotters, $221,000 Kentuckiana Stallion Management Stakes for two-year-old filly trotters, and $120,000 Elevation for two-year-old male pacers.
Atlanta, coming off her win in the Maple Leaf Trot, is the 8-5 morning-line favourite in the Caesars Trotting Classic. Gimpanzee, who has won five of seven starts and been no worse than third in any race this season, is 9-5. Gimpanzee is ranked No. 4 in the sport’s current Top 10 poll while Atlanta is No. 6.
Century Farroh, who won the Dan Patch Stakes at Hoosier in August, is the 3-1 favourite in the Harrah’s Hoosier Park Pacing Derby. Dorsoduro Hanover, who won the Canadian Pacing Derby earlier this month, is 7-2.
Other stakes favourites are Elegantimage runner-up Sister Sledge (8-5) in the Moni Maker, Pennsylvania Sire Stakes champion No Lou Zing (2-1) in the Jenna’s Beach Boy, Pennsylvania Sire Stakes champion Southwind Gendry (8-5) in the Elevation, and New York Sire Stakes champion Iteration (3-1) in the Kentuckiana trot.
Racing begins at 6:30 p.m. (EDT) Friday at Hoosier.
(USTA)