Solid card for Pocono Opener

WILKES-BARRE PA – Pocono Downs at Mohegan Pennsylvania starts off its 2026 season with a 1 p.m. program on Saturday, February 14, and it is as solid a harness racing card as may have been presented during any of the previous sixty Pocono curtainraisers.

There is a $27,500 fast-class feature for seasoned veterans on both gaits. The sixth race trot is a handicap affair, with the four outermost starters in the field of seven showing a victory on their top lines. The Brodster, starting from the far outside for trainer Per Engblom, will be going for his fifth straight victory; his stablemate Ultion Face N, a wire-to-wire at Yonkers last Thursday, starts just inside him, and it will be interesting to see which horse Jason Bartlett, named on both and another starter in the race, will be handling.

Engblom also has a pair in the $27,500 pacing headliner. Pinny Tiger A had won five straight starts before ending his 2025 with a head defeat at the hands of Lou Hill – the other Engblom trainee, and away from the races since that December 27 triumph. Pinny Tiger A opened his 2026 campaign with a rallying win in 1:50.4 at The Meadows on January 31, and will start from post three in this seven-horse field, with Lou Hill beginning from the five slot.

The inaugural card will also feature five $15,000 divisions of the first preliminary leg of the popular Game Of Claims Pacing Series, the fields in for a base tag of $25,000 this week. Brandon Presto, the leading trainer at The Meadows, will load up a truck with six GOC series horses for an eastern invasion, and the sextet show eleven wins among their past performance lines. Paul Blumenfeld, Cory Stratton, and Darren Taneyhill will have starters from their respective barns in four of the five divisions of the GOC series, which culminates in a $35,000 Championship on Saturday, March 7.

Tuesday also was the second consecutive day that Pocono hosted qualifying races for horses prepping for this campaign; weekly qualifiers will shift to Wednesday after this week. On Tuesday, with the temperatures “balmy” as elevating from 26^o to 31^o during the session, there were three sub-1:55 times turned in, the fastest of 1:54.2 turned in by Expedited Service, one of four winners George Napolitano Jr. drove. Mindtrip (1:54.3) and Dandy’s Mercy (1:54.4) clocked the other swift clockings. On the trot, trainer Jill Roland had the fastest two winners, Te Amo Lindy (1:57.2) and Robbie Pev (1:57.4).

Both Monday’s and Tuesday’s qualifiers are viewable on the PHHA website, www.phha.org.

Pocono will draw Wednesday (the 11^th) for 1 p.m. racing on Monday the 16^th and on Thursday (the 12^th) for racing on Tuesday the 17^th; the box for the pari-mutuel cards closes at 9 a.m. After that, the pari-mutuel draws will revert to their normal schedule: draw Monday for Saturday, draw Tuesday for Monday, and draw Wednesday for Tuesday.

From the PHHA / Pocono Downs