Can Elista Hanover return to winning ways?

WASHINGTON, PA, Aug. 28, 2024 — Elista Hanover (International Moni-Evermore) has triumphed in all three Pennsylvania Sires Stake preliminary harness racing legs, and she’s won 10 of 13 starts this year. So, it seems bizarre to say the sophomore filly trotter is on a losing streak. Yet she’s dropped her last two and will be looking to right the ship in Thursday’s final PASS prelim, a $141,798 stake known as the Stenographer, at Hollywood Casino at The Meadows.

The program also features a $40,000 PA Stallion Series event for 3-year-old filly trotters. First post is 12:45 PM.

Those two recent defeats for Elista Hanover came against top-shelf company — a fourth place finish in the Delmonica Hanover, a seventh-placed sixth result in the final of the Hambletonian Oaks, where she was sent off the even-money favorite.

Yet Annie Stoebe, who trains Elista Hanover and owns with R. Lynn Curry and Philomena Curry, reports that she had excuses unrelated to the caliber of the competition.

“She scoped very sick after the Hambletonian Oaks, and we had to get her healthy,” Stoebe says. “In the Delmonica Hanover, she choked down at the gate. She’d never done that before, but she decided to grab on at the gate.”

In response, Stoebe has switched her from a leather bit to a plain snaffle bit, and still another possible change will be a race-time call.

“We may go to cheek pieces rather than a closed bridle. That depends on how she warms up.”

Stoebe indicated Elista Hanover won’t race at the Red Mile but is targeting the Breeders Crown. The $240,000 yearling acquisition has banked $224,020, and Stoebe notes that her family typically improves with age.

“As long as she finishes the year strong,” she says, “our intentions are to bring her back at 4.”

Elista Hanover goes from post 4, race 6, with regular driver David Miller aboard.

by Evan Pattak, for the MSOA