Astonishing mile by son of Real Artist

BEDFORD PA – The two-year-old horses featured on Tuesday's second and last day of the short meet in this southwestern Pennsylvania town proved a little more hospitable to those who are not "early birds" – as opposed to the sophomores, who have set a local divisional track record in the very first race of their "day" the last three PA fair stops, the freshmen waited until race two on their 10:30 a.m. harness racing card before starting to rewrite the Bedford books.

 

But you still had to be at the track before noon on Tuesday if you wanted to see the fastest mile of the year on the Pennsylvania fair circuit.

 

Artists Ruffles, a son of Real Artist out of the $400,000+-winning mare April Ruffles, already had won in 1:56.3 at The Meadows and had 2-4 finishes in PA Stallion Series competition, so it was no surprise that he triumphed at Bedford in his cut of the freshman colt pace – but going out at 11:44 a.m. and performing a double circumnavigaton of the Bedford oval in 1:57 was astonishing. The mile, which featured a 57.2 last half, equaled the divisional track record of Gordo in 2014, and missed by only 2/5 of a second the all-time Bedford standard of 1:56.3 by Keystone Famous, which lived on safely after its 30th anniversary year. It also knocked a tick off the circuit's 2016 swiftest clocking, set by the three-year-old Star Of Terror at Gratz.

 

Local fair legend (and Hambletonian winner) Roger Hammer, who trains and drives the slick colt along with sharing ownership with Vicki Fair, must have had mixed emotions when he heard the final time announced in his city of residence: perhaps a bit disappointed he didn't get the all-age mark, but happy with the performance of his colt, and perhaps a bit relieved that the 1:56.3 mark of Keystone Famous – whom he happened to train and drive – was still standing.

 

It had also been trainer/driver Hammer who posted the other alteration of the Bedford speed journals, as his Toolbox Tuesday won a division of the two-year-old colt trot in 2:01.3, equaling the 1990 mark set by Super Fellow. The Broadway Hall gelding, whose ownership is also shared by Hammer and Vicki Fair, added this mark to his rewriting of the Butler divisional standard to 2:05.3, joining him with his compatriot filly Love Being Lucky as the only two-time track record rewriters of the year.

 

Indeed, the Pennsylvania fair circuit's "season's leaders" list was also rewritten in the other two freshman categories as well: by the Crazed trotting filly Learning Lindy, whose 2:02.2 triumph in the filly trot was only a fifth off Mooksie's track record for owner/trainer/driver Ladarrius Whitaker, probably the only resident of Louisiana winning on yesterday's card (he's based at Northfield), and by Camera Lady, a Dragon Again miss whose 2:00.3 mile allowed "Smilin'" Dave Brickell, trainer-driver and co-owner with Mitchell York, to flash his pearly whites in the winners circle for the sixth time in the still-young career of the precocious distaff.

 

Hammer took meet honors in the horsemen's categories, as he trained and drove five winners. There were divisional records set in six of the eight "colt" divisions, topped by OMG Hanover's new 2:00.2 trotting standard set Monday, and six 2:00 miles during the meet – the previous five stops combined on the local fair trail had produced only five.

 

The popular Clearfield Fair, which traditionally has had one of the most overcrowded entry boxes in the state due to its good surface and conditions, along with its location just north of center-state, will host a four-day meeting starting Sunday, the day after The Adios – whose 2017 edition is a race not inconceivable for Artists Ruffles if he continues to develop as he is.