Plunge Blue Chip, who began her career as a two-year-old, was a harness racing champion of her era. Now retired to the breeding shed she was the first three-year-old trotter to go inside 1:50 and the fastest ever trotter on a half-mile track (1:51.3).
One of only six female trotters in history to win a race in faster than 1:50, Plunge Blue Chip (1:49.4), along with her great adversary, Manchego, are the only two trotting mares to achieve the feat more than once. She also clocked 1:49.1 when a close second in The Allerage.
It can rightly be claimed of Plunge Blue Chip that she is one of the best bred and best performed trotting mares in the last decade.
As a two-year-old she won nine of her 10 outings and $404,690 in stakes including the $420,750 Goldsmith Maid in 1:53.1 at The Meadowlands and the $173,000 Matron Stakes at Dover Downs.
She took her record of 1:49.4 at three years, winning a $128,500 division of the Delvin Miller Memorial at The Meadowlands, in which she defeated Manchego ($2,857,315). The time equalled the fastest trotting mile ever put up at the Big M and tied the season’s record.
The Delvin Miller Memorial
Plunge Blue Chip equalled her world record 1:49.4 performance in winning a Kentucky Futurity elimination at The Red Mile, defeating Atlanta and Manchego.
Among her other successes at three were the $129,000 Hudson Filly Trot in 1:53.1 – the fastest trotting mile in Yonkers history when set – and the $225,000 New York Sire Stakes Final, while she recorded notable placings in the Breeders Crown, Hambletonian Oaks and Zweig Memorial.
Plunge Blue Chip won the Miss Versatility Series, run at Delaware’s half-mile track, in 1:52.1 at four and in a world record 1:51.3 at five, in which she matched her world record-breaking effort in the $133,000 Joie De Vie at Tioga Downs a month earlier.
Plunge Blue Chip winning the Miss Versatility Series
Plunge Blue Chip nabbed her richest win of the year at her final start in the $140,000 TVG Free-for-all in a stake record-equalling 1:51.4 at The Meadowlands, brushing home in 27.1 to score by 1-1/2 lengths.
In all, Plunge Blue Chip recorded 23 wins and 19 placings in 48 starts and finished up with a stake tally of $1,596,841 – an average of $33,268 per start.
Among the top trotters she met and defeated were Hannelore Hanover ($3,069,857), Atlanta ($2,859,610), Manchego ($2,857,315) and Emoticon Hanover ($2,044,663).
“She can do everything. She can leave fast, she never breaks, and she is strong. She is always fighting to the wire,” trainer and part-owner Ake Svanstedt said.
On the score of blood Plunge Blue Chip lacks nothing. Her sire Muscle Mass (1:53.4) was a champion with stake earnings of $229,000 and has been one of America’s top sires for some time. He figures as the sire of two of America’s greatest trotters in Six Pack 1:49.1 ($1,973,661) and Plunge Blue Chip 1:49.4 ($1,596,841) and, in all, he sired 90 in the 1:55 list, 137 $100,000 earners and the winners of more than $43 million.
Plunge Blue Chip belongs to a noted female line, her dam Dunk The Donato being by Donato Hanover (1:50.1), Hambletonian winner and champion sire and broodmare sire from Irene’s Lucky Lady (1:54.3), by Winky’s Pine (1:55.2 son of Pine Chip) from Meadowbranch Irene, by Meadow Road (1:54.2), Swedish Horse of the Year and Elitlopp winner.
Dunk The Donato, the dam of Plunge Blue Chip, is proving a successful broodmare. She is also the dam of Splash Blue Chip (1:58.3), who was placed in this year’s Breeders Crown 2YO Final, and Naco Blue Chip (1:57.3).
Her grand-dam, Irene’s Lucky Lady, a winner of $138,117, ranked as a half-sister to the USA Trotter of the Year and dual Breeders Crown champion Mr Muscleman 1:51.1 ($4,032,206), the winner of a world record 30 races in 1:55 or faster.
Lady Chaos (1:53.1), the winner of the recent Breeders Crown 2YO Filly Trot and Kentucky Sire Stakes and $560,803 in stakes, is a member of the same family as Plunge Blue Chip.
Plunge Blue Chip can boast two strains of Valley Victory, the sire of the great Muscles Yankee, on the top side of her pedigree, while champion sires such as Andover Hall, Pine Chip, Donerail and Nevele Pride appear on the distaff side.