Post Position: 5
Standardbred Canada TrackIT Link:
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Bay colt by Western Hanover – Must See – Artsplace
BREEDERS: Fair Winds Farm Inc., Cream Ridge, NJ & Steve Jones, Montgomery, NY
OWNERS: Jeffrey Snyder, New York, NY & Lothlorien, Cheltenham, ON
STATISTICS:
2009 3 2 0 0 $38,500
2008 12 4 4 1 $601,127
Totals 15 6 4 1 $639,627
LIFETIME MARK: 3, 1:50, Mohawk
CAREER HIGHLIGHTS & NOTES:
Purchased for $240,000 at the Harrisburg Sale in PA in November of 2007
• Co-owned by Jeffrey Snyder, who has won three Cups, with Cams Card Shark (1994), Red River Hanover (2002) and Rocknroll Hanover (2005), while Lothlorien also co-owned Red River Hanover and Rocknroll Hanover
• Driver Ron Pierce won 2006 Cup with Total Truth
At two:
• Broke his maiden in second start, July 23 at the Meadowlands, in 1:54.3
• Finished second in Metro elimination, August 23 at Mohawk, then was fourth in $1 million Metro final, two and one-quarter lengths behind Major In Art, August 30
• Won $162,454 division of Champlain, September 6 at Mohawk, in 1:52.2
• Finished second in Governor’s Cup elimination, October 18, before being distanced in $820,000 Governor’s Cup final, October 25 at Woodbine, after making an early break
• Finished third in his Breeders Crown elim, November 21 at the Meadowlands, before winning the $700,000 final by one length over Art Colony on November 29 in a then career best 1:51
At three:
• Opened with a victory at Chester on June 3 in 1:53.1
• Finished fourth, one and one-half lengths behind Keep It Real, in a $100,000 division of Burlington on June 13 at Mohawk
• Won his Cup elim by one-quarter length over Keep It Real in a career best 1:50, the fastest of the four elims on June 20 at Mohawk
ELIMINATION QUOTES:
Toni Rose, Assistant trainer
“He won, how could you not be happy? He’s better from behind, but he raced super. Our plans are the same as last week – train him on Wednesday, two trips somewhere between 2:11 and 2:12 and let him come home pretty good in the last quarter. He’ll be stabled here at Mohawk.”
“We’re hoping to get the three-hole for the final. Hopefully there’ll be a battle up front and we can come second-over and get everything. Our main competition? Every horse that’s going to be in there.”
“He’s still coming into himself. We only had one start before we came up for the Burlington, and he still wasn’t real sharp in that. If he’d had a couple more starts coming into this, I would have been a lot happier but he should still be real good next week with three starts behind him. It’s a huge race – this compares to the Meadowlands Pace in the US. Going for one and a half million. There’s not many horses who get a chance to win this or even be in the final.”
“Well Said kicks the walls, so he gets to wear kicking chains every day. But he’s fun, he’s got a lot of personality. He loves people, loves being around them. He’s just fun to be with.”
Trainer – Steve Elliott
Age: 55
Career wins through June 21, 2009: 557
Career earnings through June 21, 2009: $19,947,374
Steve Elliott has a strong grip on what the sport of harness racing is all about. Originally from Detroit, Elliott has been one of the top trainers in the sport for the past two decades and has definitely known the ups and downs that are associated with training Standardbreds.
Elliott reached the pinnacle of the sport in 1988 when three of his trainees earned divisional titles. Sweet Reflection, who was also one of the top freshman filly pacers in 1987. The 2-year-old pacing colt Totally Ruthless chalked up victories in large stakes en route to being named 2-Year-Old Pacing Colt of the Year by a 203-68 margin over Kentucky Spur. The son of Walton Hanover won 12 of his 15 juvenile starts and earned $938,539 that year.
Nearly two decades after his remarkable 1988 campaign, Elliott was back in the headlines with the remarkable colt trotter Donato Hanover. As a 2-year-old in 2006, Donato Hanover lost his first start, then ripped off eight straight victories on his way to a landslide triumph in the Dan Patch Awards balloting. But it was in 2007 that Donato Hanover really shined. He won 11 times in 13 trips to the post and banked $2,336,190, the most ever earned by a trotter in a single season - his biggest win coming in the $1.5 million Hambletonian. Donato was a landslide choice as U.S. Horse of the Year, Trotter of the Year, and top 3-year-old trotting colt in the Dan Patch Awards balloting.
Elliott also campaigned another Dan Patch divisional champion in 2007, a three-year-old pacing filly named Southwind Tempo. She was a winner in 16 of her 21 races, with earnings of $863,604. Free for all pacer Artistic Fella also enjoyed a solid 4-year-old campaign for him that year, capturing the $500,000 Breeders Crown Final and the $200,000 Dan Patch on his way to cashing $674,640. These horses helped Elliott to 2007 training earnings of $5,051,665, a career best total which ranked him third among all conditioners in North America.
He was honored with the Glen Garnsey Trainer of the Year Award by the United States Harness Writers Association. Elliott also won the scribes’ W.R. Haughton Good Guy Award.
Driver - Ron Pierce
Age: 53
Career wins through June 21, 2009: 6,956
Career earnings through June 21, 2009: $150,911,593
Although he has been one of the top drivers on the lucrative New Jersey circuit for many years, the trip down the road to success was not an easy journey for Ron Pierce. That road took Pierce all the way to Macao, a Portuguese territory in southeast China, near Hong Kong.
“At that point of my career, I had nothing to lose, so I went over there,” Pierce said. “I had raced in Southern California in the spring of 1981, and I didn’t do very well, and when a friend of mine suggested I go to Macao to drive, I didn’t see any reason not to. “
It didn’t take Pierce long to return to the United States. He became a fixture on the California circuit in the mid-1980s and finally made it big by winning his first driving title during the summer fall harness meet at Los Alamitos in 1985.
He expanded his horizons in 1986 as he was the leading dash winning driver during the spring meet at Fairplex Park and also at Canterbury Downs. Since moving to the Garden State in the late 1980s, Pierce has consistently been among the driving leaders there and his overall numbers have ranked him with the best in the sport.
The past few seasons have been his most outstanding. In 2004 he finished first in the North American earnings with a bankroll of $12,329,238 and was named Driver of the Year by the United States Harness Writers Association.
In both 2004 and 2005, he was named as Driver of the Year on the Grand Circuit. In 2006, Pierce won his second money title with a new career high of $14,439,087. His father, Don, was a top driver and trainer when he competed. Pierce said he knew at a young age that he wanted to be involved with horse racing. “I originally wanted to be a jockey,” Pierce said. “I loved quarterhorses and Thoroughbreds, but I was too big to be a jockey. I galloped thoroughbreds on the East Coast, but there was just not enough money in galloping horses.”
Pierce has competed in five NA Cups and has a win with Total Truth in 2006.
Donato Hanover was Pierce’s big gun in 2007, when he guided the sophomore trotter to a Horse of the Year title in the U.S. He compiled 399 wins and earnings of over $ 13 million, good for second overall.
Last year, he drove Art Official to the upset win over Somebeachsomewhere in the $1 Meadowlands Pace to hand that one his only loss of his career. He went on to record 346 wins and earnings of $12,005,449.
He is likely to get his 7,000th career win later this summer.
Pierce received the sport’s highest honour when he was inducted into the Living Hall of Fame in Goshen, N.Y., in the summer of 2005.