Bar Hopping filly goes the race of her life

WILKES-BARRE PA – The Bar Hopping three-year-old filly Bay Breeze Hanover turned in the race of her life in the $15,500 Tuesday afternoon featured trot at Pocono Downs at Mohegan Pennsylvania, overcoming a hard trip while posting a lifetime best of 1:54.3.

Favored Bay Breeze Hanover looked to have her task simplified a bit when her next two mutuel rivals, Craigieburn and Rothko, both made early miscues. But two other harness racing rivals, Checkmate Hall and Vanguard, made life difficult for the filly in the first half, as Checkmate Hall (post three) kept Bay Breeze Hanover (post four) two-wide and Vanguard (post five) three-wide well past a :27 opening quarter. The chalk finally cleared to the lead in front of the stands, with Checkmate Hall then behind her and Vanguard left out in the air, and he retreated from the battle past a :55.4 half.

Ballroom Bash had stayed connected behind the early duel and moved outside towards a 1:25 three-quarters, but by that point Bay Breeze Hanover had started to leave the field far in her wake – the final win margin was ten lengths over Ballroom Bash, who in turn finished three lengths of ahead of Checkmate Hall.

Bay Breeze Hanover went over the six-figure mark in lifetime earnings despite this being only her fourth career win, as she has been a checkgetter in higher company. Michael Seddon, who became the winner’s new trainer in her previous start, joined with driver Tyler Buter and owner Nick Shaw in the success.

BAY BREEZE HANOVER REPLAY

The parade of Pocono longshots continued on Tuesday, as Braxten Boyd brought home River Of Denile at a $65.60 mutuel, running that count to ten in the last month. If you like to bet longshots, “the form” says do so on a Pocono race numbering in the double digits (the track usually has fourteen or fifteen races): 16 of the 44 $50+ winners this year have been in the later races, including four of the last seven.

Driving triples were recorded by Boyd, Buter, and Anthony Napolitano, who tripled for the second consecutive card. Two of the wins for Buter, the track’s leading driver, came for the meet’s leading trainer, Ron Burke.

Racing at Pocono resumes on Saturday at 1 p.m., with a $27,500 pace for top fast-class horses who can threaten 1:50 under good conditions will be spotlighted. Monday at 1 p.m., there will be $200,000 at stake in the eight Pennsylvania Fair Sire Stakes Championships; the racing week will then close out with a 1 p.m. program Tuesday. Free Pocono program pages are or will be available at www.phha.org.

For complete race results, click here: US Trotting results.

From the PHHA / Pocono Downs