HorseRacingNation.com NewsWire

Mohawk Raceway is back and so is Drive On!

Sat, 25 May 2013 14:44:10 GMT

It’s not a secret that Mohawk is our favorite racetrack in the civilized world. That being said (and repeated), tonight marks the first Saturday card of what promises to be an exciting summer meet. We are only 3 weeks away from the Pepsi North America Cup final in which 2013 USTA Pacer Of The Year Captain Treacherous will be out to avenge his loss in the Breeders Crown 2YO pace at Woodbine last fall.

Tonight’s card looks very competitive with a good likelihood of some healthy payoffs. Before we get to our full-card analysis and the “Drive On Bets” segment here are some things to look for that may help when handicapping the Mohawk races as they have recently switched from the quirky Woodbine oval 30 minutes down the 401 highway.

· Mohawk’s races have a much better “flow” as closers can latch onto cover better and fields don’t typically gap out like they do at Woodbine. While speed horses and quick-leavers still win the lion’s share of the dashes, closers have a much better chance of mounting successful rallies due to th

"Feeling lucky punk?" and...DriveOn Bets returns!

Sat, 02 Mar 2013 08:29:45 GMT

“Garnet; are you feeling lucky today”…..I was waiting for the…”punk?” part - thinking of one of the greatest lines in movie history uttered by Clint Eastwood in the movie “Dirty Harry”.

But I also knew that the lady on the other end of the phone was far too nice to call me names - no matter how amusing it would have been.

When Standardbred Canada’s Manager of Industry Marketing, Kathy Wade Vlaar, called me yesterday, I suspected the discussion may centre around a recent story I had written about 13YO harness racing superfan and now owner, Sydney Weaver. http://www.downthestretchnewspaper.com/issues/6issue002/page24.html But when Kathy spoke the words “Feeling lucky…?” I knew something was up, and was eager to find out why I should feel “lucky”. My immediate response was “nooooooo…why? Then I got some wildly exciting news. “Do you remember Rocky Delbello,” Wade-Vlaar asked, and my heart jumped into my throat in anticipation because I sure did remember Rocky - he was the only contestant that finished ahead of me in the 2012 Breeders Crown Fantasy D

Doug McNair's star continues to shine brighter

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 22:02:31 GMT

The meteoric rise of young Canadian driving star Doug McNair didn’t slow a bit with his full-time switch to the major leagues in 2012. In fact, the 23-year old had the biggest surge of any Woodbine Entertainment Group driver in number of winning drives, up 110 from the previous year when he was just breaking onto the WEG scene after rewriting the record books several times on smaller tracks. McNair, the youngest driver to steer 1,000 winners and winners of $1,000,000 in purses AND winners of $10,000,000 finished a solid 5th in wins on the extremely competitive Woodbine/Mohawk circuit, finishing with 191 wins and a solid 14% win rate. Lofty status for a 23-year-old. Some of McNair’s biggest moments included reprising his winning performance in Maywood’s Windy City Pace driving Pet Rock (he won the 2010 version with his dad Gregg’s Aracache Hanover.)

McNair flew down to Chicago to catch drive the Rocknroll Hanover colt for trainer Virgil Morgan and was clearly appreciative of the connections’ confidence in him during post-race interviews.

Here's Drive On's top 5 moments of 2012

Tue, 25 Dec 2012 13:35:37 GMT

Here’s a list of Drive On’s personal top 5 with accompanying video. Keep in mind this is a personal list of favorites races or moments, some reflect the absolute epitome of greatness, others (see #3) are just moments that are dear to my heart.

#1 - The Little Brown Jug Final

From a purely jingoistic standpoint, it didn’t get any better for a Canadian than this year’s Jug. Ontario-bred pacer Michael’s Power, trained by first-time winner and Canadian native Casie Coleman and driven by young Canadian superstar Scott Zeron blew the doors off his rivals in the Final using a 25.2 record first quarter to issue a “NO YOU DON’T” statement to Meadowlands Pace winner A Rock N Roll Dance who was intent on getting to the front but had no choice but to take back. From a personal standpoint, Scotty winning the Jug and stamping himself as the youngest ever in his first try validated for good my prediction early in Zeron’s driving career that he would climb to the top of the mountain quickly. I took some heat for that statement on more than one occasion, but, on this day, no one could doub

Chapter Seven is all-world in the Breeders Crown!

Sun, 28 Oct 2012 09:12:28 GMT

The 2012 Breeders Crown is in the books and there were several notable performances, none that came close to the SENSATIONAL mile trotted by the undisputed greatest active trotter in the world, Chapter Seven.

Left hung out to dry by European driver Cristophe Martens who left the gate on a mission with Commander Crowe, Chapter Seven gave both trainer Linda Toscano and driver Tim Tetrick some anxious moments. Parking the mile on any track is a near-impossible situation for a racehorse, but it’s even worse on Woodbine’s speed-favouring surface . Racing the entire route on the outside was a strategy that backfired on Europeans Commander Crowe and Rapide Lebel in the 2011 Crown Aged Trot as San Pail’s driver Randy Waples left them out by driving to the top on the first turn and keeping them out the mile worked to his advantage. The connections of Commander Crowe stated they learned from that experience and would head straight to the front this year. That they did, and it was obvious from the moment the wings of the gate swung open that they weren’t letti

It All Comes Down To The Breeders Crown

Sat, 27 Oct 2012 14:05:28 GMT

The motto never gets old: “It all comes down to the Breeders Crown”! Indeed. Excitement is building up here in The Great White - or in the case of today rainy - White North as we are only a few hours away to post time for what is arguably the best and most competitive Breeders Crown card assembled to date. The 12 one-mile dashes begin at 6:30 Eastern with local hero FRENCHFRYSNVINEGAR hoping to kick it off with a win for the home team as the heavy favorite in the Aged Mare Trot. At this point it appears almost certain the track will be sloppy at post time and it remains to be seen if that will favor or hinder quick leavers.

There are several intriguing story lines tonight, not the least of which is European superstar COMMANDER CROWE- who finished 3^rd behind 2011 North American Horse Of The Year SAN PAIL last fall-returning to Woodbine for a 2^nd crack at the Aged Trot facing off against American champ CHAPTER SEVEN and local hero MISTER HERBIE. Hambletonian champ MARKET SHARE faces off against INTIMIDATE who absolutely flew down the Woodbine stretch to beat him in las

Anatomy Of An Overlay - Breeders Crown 2012

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 22:50:58 GMT

This Saturday night at Woodbine Racetrack North America’s - and even a couple of Europe’s - best harness horses of all ages and both gaits gather to face off in 12 Breeders Crown races, many of which will decide year-end honors. Many of these races have several contenders and it looks like there are several potentially lucrative wagering opportunities. In this post we will examine one - which is our best price play out of the dozen dashes - and we call this post “Anatomy Of An Overlay.”

We take you to the 2YO Colt and Gelding Trot in race 8. The deserving favorite in this race is the #2 horse, Wheeling N Dealing, a Cantab Hall colt that has won all 8 of his starts - including a 155.1 front end score in his elimination. This horse has won on the front end and stalking and blasting off cover late in the mile. His impressive unblemished resume means he will take lots of money - and he’s not the only one. The #1 horse, Dontyouforgetit, is another impressive offspring of Cantab Hall that has made more than $337,000 off 6 wins in 9 starts and took a bye into the Final as one of the top mone

Have you ever wanted to announce a live race? Me too, and I did!

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 20:27:08 GMT

I usually try to steer clear of incorporating overused pop-culture phrases in my vocabulary. This year, however, thanks to the good folks that run Hanover Raceway, I was fortunate to get the chance to scratch an item off my “bucket list” - a phrase which absolutely applied in this case. If I did have one of these darned “bucket lists”- made famous in the movie of the same name starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson-this item was surely on it.

You see, ever since I was a young boy, I have had this crazy notion that I have what it takes to announce live horse races at the track. My dad, a “lifer” like I guess I now am, started to drag me to the racetrack at a very young age. It didn’t take long for me to get hooked. Most often, we would take the bus and subway down to Greenwood Raceway (RIP) to watch what we called “the trots” - and that’s how harness racing became my first love. It didn’t take long for me to demand my parents buy me a small portable tape recorder and as soon as I got it I’d be calling races into that device, re-creating the racing action reading from the result

It's time for the $1,000,000 Metro Pace at The 'Hawk!

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 08:19:17 GMT

It’s Metro Pace night at Mohawk Racetrack and there is a dynamite-looking group of freshman pacers vying for the lion’s share of the $1,000,000 purse, led by division leader #4 Captain Treacherous. From the very successful (to date) first crop of all-time great Somebeachsomewhere, the good Captain sizzled over the one-mile Meadowlands oval last month on Hambletonian day and in winning The Woodrow Wilson by 10 widening lengths he set a new stakes and trck record, stopping the clock in 149.3. Yet while Captain Treacherous is the undisputed leader of the division at this point there figures to be at least a trio of challengers in tonight’s race that are going to test him for the top prize of $500,000, including the other two elimination winners from last week, #2 Odds On Equulus and #3 Apprentice Hanover. Both of these horses have a decent chance to upset the favorite here, but I am going to call #2 Odds On Equulus to get up in the shadow of the wire with his big late kick and take it all for Mr. Harness Racing driver John Campbell. This horse has been expertly handled up

It's Hambletonian Day at the Big M!

Sat, 04 Aug 2012 07:06:28 GMT

It’s The Hambletonian! Harness racing’s signature race takes centre stage today at The Meadowlands in East Rutherford, New Jersey and it looks like a very competitive race with numerous possibilities. Also featured in the Hambletonian Oaks is multiple World Champion Check Me Out who takes on the red-hot Maven in what shapes up to be a fantastic dash. The tremendous action does not stop there as this stacked card also features The U.S Pacing championship for older pacing stallions and geldings, The Lady Liberty for Open pacing mares, The Nat Ray for Open older male trotters, The Woodrow Wilson for 2YO Pacing colts, The Merrie Annabelle for 2YO Pacing filles, The Peter Haughton Memorial for 2YO trotting colts, The Sweetheart Final for 2YO pacing fillies and several other stakes.

Later in the “DriveOn Bets” section we will list our wagers for the card in cluding both Pick 4 bets. First, let’s take a look at The “Hambo” from the rail out.

1. Uncle Peter (Ron Pierce/Jimmy Takter) - This Cantab Hall colt is on a roll coming into the race, having w