WATTSBURG PA – Major Matter, driven by harness racing trainer Rick Beinhauer, equaled the all-age track trotting record at the Erie County Fairgrounds in this northwest Pennsylvania town on Sunday, with the sophomore Explosive Matter gelding covering the mile in 2:04 to tie the 28-year-old local standard of Smokey Crown on the second day of the two-day meet kicking off the 2016 Pennsylvania fair racing season.
Major Matter took to the track in the very first race on Sunday, just as sunny as the day before but cooler and with a quartering wind, and got the track buzzing right way on this day of PA Fair Sire Stakes for three-year-olds, going around the half-mile oval, which was in great shape, in fractions of 30.3, 1:01.4, and 1:32.3 before trotting home to the historic 2:04 clocking, first set, and in this division, by Smokey Crown and driver David Brocklehurst in 1988. Trainer/driver Beinhauer has literally every right to be proud of his horse, winner of his PA Fair Championship at The Meadows last year, as he is also co-owner and co-breeder of the new track recordholder with his wife Regina.
After the record trotting mile, the major news headline of the day would seem to rest on Team Shaw, trainer Jason Shaw and brother/driver Chris Shaw, as they combined to win three of the four divisions of the sophomore filly pace Sire Stakes. Jason's young son Mason Shaw added to his already-bulging college fund when his Unbeamlievable, last year's North American leader in divisional victories with 13, quickly showed her fair-loving form, the daughter of Moon Beam the fastest winner in his section with a 2:04.1 – 29.2 triumph.
The other two filly winners are owned by Jason, Quick Hot Passion (a maiden win in 2:04.3) and Singalongwithbing (2:05.3, lowering her mark by almost four seconds). The trio of triumphs gave the brothers four wins each in their respective categories for their weekend's work and thus a share of meet honors with the redoubtable Roger Hammer on the sulky side and with Bob Rougeaux III on the training end of things. Hammer and Rougeaux each scored three wins on Saturday and one on Sunday, with the Shaws and their fillies reversing those days' achievements in earning their statistical ties.
Well Lets See, an 11-time winner while proving a tough hombre in the two-year-old pacing colt fair ranks in 2015, was ready for fair season right away, posting a 2:03.4 triumph for owner Frank Chick and trainer Kevin Lare. Lare also took a rare turn in the sulky in guiding the Well Said gelding to the winners circle – in fact, Kevin achieved his only driving triumph in 2015 (on a severely-limited sulky schedule, to be fair) behind Well Lets See, at Butler on July 2, and to go back into history he has paraded no other horse back to Victory Lane since handing Political Terror in winning at Dover Downs on January 9, 2013, as he continues his own stirring story on the comeback trail.
That 2:03.4 by Well Lets See would prove to be a tick short of the fastest pacing mile of the Sire Stakes division, the day, and the meet, as a race earlier the Art's Card Trick gelding Wont Be Nothing continued to escape scorn for his bad grammar with good racing, lowering his mark to 2:03.3 for owner/trainer/driver Cory Kreiser.
The Pennsylvania fair season will next gather at Butler PA on the last day of the first half of the calendar year (Wednesday, June 30) and the first day of the second half of the calendar year (Thursday, July 1).
Publicity Office, Pennsylvania Fair Harness Horsemen's Association