By
Jerry Connors, for The Meadowlands
EAST
RUTHERFORD NJ – For most of its initial stakes race, the TVG Mare Trot final,
the Fall Super Saturday Championship card at The Meadowlands didn’t look like
it would get off to an unusual start, but that changed in the final sixteenth,
as Emoticon Hanover ($16.40) unleashed a vicious sprint from the pocket to
catch 1-9 favorite and pacesetter Atlanta, winning in 1:51.4 to both defend her
title in this event and equal the 2016 stakes record of Hannelore Hanover.
Darling
Mearas S made a break behind the gate; once the gate sprung, Atlanta from post
one, Emoticon Hanover from post two, and Beautiful Sin from post three all left
rapidly, but Atlanta asserted herself through track geometry heading into turn
one, with the field lined up through post position order through a :27.3
quarter and a :56.3 half.
Late
on the far turn, the sophomore Beautiful Sin came out of third to increase the
tempo nearing the 1:25.2 quarter, and Atlanta shifted into a very high gear.
And so did Emoticon Hanover from the pocket, staying on the pacesetter’s back,
then clearing to the outside for driver Dan Dube inside of the eighth pole.
Emoticon Hanover quickly shifted into overdrive, gaining about two lengths into
a :26.2 last quarter (and probably a sub-:13 eighth) and had enough thrust to
surprise the favorite by a head. Hannelore Hanover went inside in the stretch
and finished third, beaten just a length.
“I
figured that I would sit the trip behind Atlanta,” Dube noted after the race.
“When the pace picked up on the far turn, I thought we might have a chance to
catch her.”
Emoticon
Hanover, a six-year-old daughter of Kadabra, now has two TVG Final wins and a
2017 Breeders Crown championship among her 26 career wins, which has brought
$1,765,383 for trainer Luc Blais and owner Determination.
The
TVG Mares final was the last career race for Darling Mearas S, Meadowlands
track recordholder and winner of $837,308, and the 2017 Harness Horse of the
Year Hannelore Hanover, she of the multiple triumphs in open company and
$3,069,857. Hannelore Hanover will now be bred to Greesnhoe; her regular
driver, Yannick Gingras, noted in retirement ceremonies that “I wouldn’t mind
driving that one.”
