The stars come out at Sweden’s Elitloppet weekend, a glittering two-day occasion packed with quality harness racing, featuring the best trotters in the world.
It is also the showcase for the world’s best sires with no less than 80 international stallions having runners in the feature races on both days.
Super sires Muscle Hill from the US with 14 representatives, and French trio Love You (10), Orlando Vici (9) and Ready Cash (8), are the big four when it comes to the feature events, highlighted by the international Elitloppet and Sweden Cup, run in same day heats and final over a mile.
Muscle Hill, Orlando Vici and Ready Cash all have two representatives in the Elitloppet itself while Love You has one.
French sire Orlando Vici is the only stallion to have two horses in both the Elitloppet and the Sweden Cup, the so-called Mini-Elitloppet, which is the highlight of the first day’s racing.
Sweden’s home grown stallions Maharajah, (6), Raja Mirchi (5) and veteran From Above (4), who won the 2003 Elitloppet, also feature prominently, with Maharajah having a runner in both main events and both Raja Mirchi and From Above having two runners in the Sweden Cup, while Italian supersire and former Elitloppet
champion Varenne (5) also has two horses in the Sweden Cup.
Veteran US-bred former Hambletonian winner Scarlet Knight (5) who was a heat winner and placed third twice in three Elitloppet attempts, has one horse in the Elitloppet and two in the Sweden Cup.
The first day features the five divisions of the Sweden’s elite class trotters and the nation’s top mares division.
International trotters supplement the Lady Snarts race for mares, and Sweden’s biggest staying race, the Harper Hanovers where the trotters often go faster than the pacers do in the equivalent distance NZ Trotting Cup, while headlining day one is the Sweden Cup.
Day two features international age groups racing, from three to five years old, an elite monte, and of course the big race itself, the Elitloppet, in two heats and a final over a mile.
Stallions with more than a single representative in Elitlopett weekend feature races (origin and total in brackets) include;
Muscle Hill (US) (14),
Love You (FRA) (10),
Orlando Vici (FRA) (9),
Ready Cash (FRA) (8),
Maharajah (SWE) (6),
Raja Mirchi (SWE) (5)
Scarlet Knight (US) (5)
Varenne (IT) (5)
Andover Hall (US) (4),
From Above (SWE) (4),
Donato Hanover (US) (4),
Pastor Stephen (US) (4),
Pine Chip (US) (4)
Quite Easy (US) (3)
Cantab Hall (US) (3)n
Make it Happen (US) (3)
Yakee Glide (US) (3)
Gift Kronos (IT) (3)
Yankee Glide (US) (2)
Going Kronos (IT) (2)
Googoo Gaagaa (US) (2)
Citation Lindy (US) (2)
Joke Face (SWE) (2)
Lexus Font (IT) (2)
Muscles Yankee (US) (2)
Prodigious (FRA) (2)
Quick Wood (FRA) (2)
Scipion du Goutier (FRA) (2)
SJ's Caviar (US) (2)
Explosive Matter (US) (2).