BEDFORD PA – If you want to see harness racing three-year-old trotters break track records on the Pennsylvania fair circuit in 2016, you better be in your seat before the first race!
For the third straight time that sophomore trotters took to the track for their card of Pennsylvania Fair Sire Stakes action, a divisional track record was set. That happened Monday at the start of a two-card session at the Bedford County Fair – and much more so, as the gelding OMG Hanover, in rein to Todd Schadel, went the fastest mile ever posted by a trotter at the southwest Pennsylvania twicearound, 2:00.2.
A son of Cantab Hall, OMG Hanover defeated Major Matter – who had equaled the all-age mark at Wattsburg, 2:04, also in the first race – while lowering the old all-age track trot mark of 2:00.4, set by Faust in this division in 2014. OMG Hanover, who took a mark of 1:57.3 at Pocono at the end of June, is also trained by Schadel, and co-owned by him and his wife Christine.
With the temperature officially noted at 95o at first post on the twilight card, it seemed likely after the opening race that more records could fall through the next few hours, and in fact the other three divisions (via sex and gait distinctions) of sophomores either broke or equaled the Bedford sectional standards.
The next record came about 15 minutes after the first one, as Roger Hammer, co-owner with Schadel of 2007 Hambletonian winner Vivid Photo and a resident of Bedford, altered a line in the record book while steering the Great George Two filly A Little Laid Back to victory in 2:01.1, sending Bessie's 2:02.3 mile of 2014 to the rear. Hammer also owns and trains A Little Laid back, who in 2015 set three divisional track records along the Pennsylvania fair circuit. (An irony in this race is that finishing second to A Little Laid Back was Connie Jean, driven by Sam Beegle, another hometown boy – both Hammer and Beegle are in the Bedford Sports Hall of Fame, Hammer for harness racing, and PHHA President Beegle for wrestling, having made it to the state final one year!)
The first division of the three-year-old colt pace saw the Art Official colt Dragon Strikes pace a second giant mile within eight days, following up on his 1:58 win at Dayton with a 1:57.2 victory here.
That clocking earned him the Dayton record for age, sex, and gait, and also put him oh-so-close to the 2016 1:57.2 mile turned in by Star Of Terror at Gratz as the fastest time in the still-young 2016 Keystone fair season. Robert Key owns and Mike Gillock trains Dragon Strikes, who was driven by Todd …
… Schadel, who also got his name in the local record books for a third time when his Yankee Cruiser pacing filly Keystone Illianna, whom he also trains, scorched the glib Bedford surface in 1:58.1, equaling the 3PF track standard of another "Keystone," Keystone Luscious, who set her mark in 1990, the last year there was racing at Bedford for a 23-year hiatus, with the track featuring a third year of the sulky sport's renaissance in 2016. In fact, the very roots of the "Keystone" tradition ring like a bell through Keystone Illianna, as Schadel is the distaff's co-owner and co-breeder with the Estate of George Hempt Trust, George being of course the son of Hall of Famer Max C. Hempt and the father of current Hall of Fame vice president/treasurer Max J. Hempt.
In all, there were five sub-2:00 miles on the Monday Bedford card, as many as had been seen combined on the ten previous cards of PA fair racing 2016; besides Dragon Strikes and Keystone Illianna, pacing colt Billy's Falcon (1:58.4) and fillies Marvalous Jet (1:58.3) and Nickapher (1:59.3) also recorded magic miles, the last-named's even more striking seeing as it came in a Quaker State event, the Pennsylvania fair circuit's equivalent of the state's Stallion Series.
The two-year-olds will get their chance to strut their stuff today (Tuesday) when the first race will head gateward at 10:30 a.m. (Don't be late!)
Publciity Office, Pennsylvania Fair Harness Horsemen's Association