PA Fair season ends with top horses at Bloomsburg

BLOOMSBURG PA – The Pennsylvania Fair Harness Racing Circuit made its final stop of the 2024 season this past Friday and Saturday (September 20-21) at the historic Bloomsburg Fairgrounds, with supremacy among the eight stakes divisions, and entry spots for October 11’s $200,000 Pennsylvania Fair Championships at The Meadows, very much on the line.

The Standardbred Racing Bureau of the Pennsylvania State Horse Racing Commission is the official point recordkeeper for the Pennsylvania Fair Sire Stakes, and their word on the point totals is final (anything said here about points is based on an unofficial calculation on deadline). There will be a press release on the various divisional point leaders, who receive the traditional blanket in their stable’s colors at the PA Fair Banquet in January, coming out midweek. This release focuses on the racing at Bloomsburg, other totals of which this partnership is administrator, and “mathematical certainties” according to the Commission’s latest issued standings.

The focus will thus be on a pair of outstanding two-year-old trotters who are stablemates and who were the only horses who were ten-time winners at the fairs, and a pair of three-year-old fillies who appear to have the chance to go to a rarified level achieved only once in 22 years of Pennsylvania fair racing.

Trainer/driver Tony Schadel, also co-owner with his wife Linda, campaigned the Cantab Hall freshman filly Classy Cocktail and her contemporary, the Greenshoe gelding Lionheart Hanover. Both won for the tenth time at the fairs during Friday’s two-year-old racing at Bloomsburg, and incredibly, they both will end their campaigns over the twicearound circuit with identical records of 14-10-2-2 (which would put them at 430 points in the fair scoring system, and the highest point winners among all PA competitors). They will be the season’s fair speed leaders for their groups: Lionheart Hanover at 2:02 (Gratz), and Classy Cocktail with a 2:00.3 clocking (Bedford). Classy Cocktail also set two track records in a remarkably-deep division, where no fewer than seven fillies (many of whom she’ll face in her Championship) rewrote a line in the record books at various stops.

Aaron Johnston campaigns both Bloomsburg two-year-old pacing filly “A” winners, Don’t Touch My T (a winner of eight straight) and Its Written, the fastest freshman at Bloomsburg at 1:59.1, also an eight-time success story, and  in contention for blanket point honors, which as we noted will be announced after the Commission reviews the records. Wheelhouse Hanover had clinched the title for male two-year-old pacers before the weekend, but several late-bloomers could make trouble in the Championship.

Switching to Saturday’s three-year-olds, the headline fillies, trotter Little Town Road (trainer Roger Hammer) and pacer Showboat Hanover (trainer Todd Schadel), were both top point winner and Championship winner at two, and now they appear to have secured the point titles / blankets at three as well. They look to join 2021-22’s pacing filly Better Strait N Up as the only horses to “sweep” both titles at two and three (point total records being preserved since 2002; the Pennsylvania Fair Championships actually began in 1997).

Showboat Hanover paced five miles in 2:00 or less in her sophomore fair campaign and had a fairly comfortable margin, but Little Town Road had the more difficult path to again (unofficially) secure the most points.

Little Town Road’s consistency looks to have gotten her the nod over the remarkable Loveyoubunches, out of whom trainer-driver Todd Schadel got nine wins in ten starts (including Bloomsburg’s fastest trotting mile of 2:01), five track records, and the all-time PA Fairs standard for her group of 1:58.1 at Bedford. It’ll be an interesting matchup in the Championship.

The three-year-old trotting colts? The winners at Bloomsburg were both driven by Brady Brown for trainer Steve Schoeffel, and both were winning their sixth straight start at the fairs: Cyclone Ben and Bird And Grenade. The top point winner? There were still five mathematical possibilities heading to Bloomsburg, and with so many combinations involved, it’s safer to await the Commission’s official tally.

Todd Schadel had the top point winner among the pacing colts in Twiggs Pub, and also one with many other 2024 standards building on his 2023 Championship win: Ante Up Hanover. He had the fastest “A” win at Bloomsburg, 1:57.3 (a Championship finalist, Aintbluenomore, dropped down to “B” and won in 1:57 for driver Eric Neal and trainer Mitchell York, prepping him well for the Championship). Ante Up Hanover also had the fastest mile of 2024 at any fair, a 1:55.3 jaunt earlier in the week at Gratz, and his six wins in 2:00 or less also gave him honors in that category.

Horses such as these last few earned Todd Schadel the 2024 top spot in both driving and training victories (97 and 91, respectively). The underbattles went down to the wire: Eric Neal was top Bloomsburg driver with seven wins to give him second over Aaron Johnston 63-60, and Tony Schadel edged Tom Loughry Jr. 37-35 on the conditioners’ side. You see most of these top horsemen associated with champion horses somewhere in this season-ending report.

The Saturday Bloomsburg card was livestreamed, and you can watch it on this link.

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

From the PHHA, PFHHA and the MSOA partnership