Earlier this year at Mohegan Sun
at Pocono Downs when Cooler Schooner trotted the fastest mile ever by a
two-year-old filly there were many in the harness world unwilling to believe a
1:51 3/5 mile was possible. In that Pennsylvania Sire Stakes mile the Jim
Campbell-trained filly defeated Merrie Annabelle champion Shake It Cerry, a
filly driver Ron Pierce had earlier proclaimed “The best two-year-old filly”
he’d ever sat behind. Included among Pierce’s prior mounts was 2011 Breeders
Crown champion Check Me Out.
Then another filly emerged with
talent and speed worthy of potential top billing. Her name is Designed To Be
and true to her pedigree she was designed to be a great one. The daughter of
Donato Hanover took it on the chin initially behind Shake It Cerry in
Pennsylvania Sire Stakes competition but would emerge to capture the state
championship at Harrah’s Philadelphia in mid-September.
Shake It Cerry faced Designed To
Be again during Grand Circuit action at Lexington’s Red Mile and this time she
proved the strongest in the stretch setting yet another world record of 1:52
2/5. Though slower than Cooler Schooner’s effort over a five-eighths track,
Designed To Be was as impressive in victory.
Trainer Jimmy Takter last year
sent out would-be superstar To Dream On to a Breeders Crown title at Woodbine.
She was indeed a dream last year though slow to find her best stride as a
three-year-old. Takter trains Shake It
Cerry as well as Lifetime Pursuit, a winner in six of nine starts this year
including a 1:52 3/5 effort in the second week of Grand Circuit racing at the
Red Mile.
The Takter tandem finished one-two
in the $321,700 Merrie Annabelle final at the Meadowlands earlier this year
with Shake It Cerry, a homebred daughter of Donato Hanover from the top stakes
filly Solveig, winning in a personal best 1:53 3/5 clocking a stakes record
that eclipsed her stablemate To Dream On’s mark of 1:54 taken in 2012.
“This is the best group of
two-year-old fillies I have ever seen,” declared Takter. “Both Lifetime Pursuit
and Shake It Cerry are very close. I would say that Shake It Cerry is a little
better on the big track.”
In Shake It Cerry’s last outing
she finished a solid closing second to Designed To Be at The Red Mile in a race
that perhaps saw her get untracked a few seconds too late.
“Ronnie (driver Pierce) told me after the race
that he thinks she could have won if he had gotten her in gear sooner,” said
Takter in retrospect.
A total of 14 two-year-old fillies
were brave enough to enter their Breeders Crown event. That’s a surprising
number considering the immense talent among the
aforementioned division leaders but these are young trotters, and
sometimes they lack polish on the racetrack.
For example Cooler Schooner may be
the fastest trotter in the world, but over the last few weeks she’s had a hard
time rating the pace and has fallen victim to closers. Her problems early this
season were getting away cleanly without making a break. Hall of Fame driver
John Campbell convinced his brother, trainer Jim, to try to keep her calm and
let her do her thing without much restraint. The result of that effort was the
1:51 3/5 mile on August 21.
While she did follow that effort
up with another Pennsylvania Sire Stakes victory at Harrah’s Philadelphia on
August 30, her next two races, the Pennsylvania Championship and the Bluegrass
at The Red Mile, were futile attempts to cut the pace that left Cooler
Schooner, a homebred by Broadway Hall, out of gas during crunch time.
On Friday night Cooler Schooner
gets the advantage of the rail post position in her elimination heat and the
good fortune to have Designed To Be, Shake It Cerry and Lifetime Pursuit facing
each other in the first elimination field.
New York Sire Stakes champion
Market Rally wasn’t as fortunate as Cooler Schooner. Fresh off her impressive
score at Yonkers Raceway, the daughter of Cash Hall landed post seven outside
the three top fillies in the division.
Not only is the two-year-old filly
trotting crop bursting with ability, it is also loaded with incredibly well
bred fillies likely to make their mark on the racetrack and later in the
breeding shed.
Take Goddess for instance, a
Donato Hanover-sired filly from the 2005 Breeders Crown runner-up Macaria
Hanover. Cantabs Fortune has won three of her six starts this year. She’s by
the top trotting stallion in the sport Cantab Hall (who also lead all Crown
trotting sires in purse earnings in 2012) out of Incredible Fortuna, a Credit
Winner-sired filly that finished second in the 2006 NYSS finals.
Scott McEneny has another Donato
Hanover filly in the field named Demanding Sam. She’s a foal from the 2005 NYSS
Final winner Whitesand Samantha.
Not only is the field for the
Crown juvenile filly trot deep, it is overloaded with Pennsylvania-breds. A
dozen fillies in the group were sired in Pennsylvania proving even before the
race is over how far the breeding program has come.
Whether one of the 14 fillies is
ready to join the pantheon of all-time greats remains to be seen. However, on Oct. 19 one will take her place
next to the likes of former freshman trot filly Crown champions like Peace
Corps, Winky’s Goal, Continentalvictory and Snow White.
Jay Bergman for Breeders Crown
