Columbia County, Annies Wonder Return to Clearfield County Fair Winners Circle

CLEARFIELD – Columbia County and Annies Wonder, a pair of trotters that recorded victories at the 2008 Clearfield County Fair and went on to finish among the top two-year-olds on the Pennsylvania Fair Circuit, raced into the Driving Park winner\’s circle again Wednesday afternoon in Pennsylvania Sire Stakes events.

 

Driven by Wilbur Yoder, Columbia County trotted the fastest mile of the day, 2:02.1, in the third division of the Ward Fink Memorial Colt Trot. That was just one tick off the 3 year-old colt track record set by Cottonwood Sam with Steve Schoeffel in the sulky in 2003.

 

Annies Wonder, winless in eight starts this year, got untracked for driver and co-owner Bryce Truitt of Paxinos with a 2:06 trip in the fourth division of the Dunlap-Swales Memorial Filly Trot.

 

Drivers Bobby Rougeaux, Kimberly Good and Todd Schadel were doublewinners on the 11-race card that included two dashes in The Progress Quaker State 3YO Trot.

 

Dave Brickell and Ed McNeight Jr. also reined winners to close the gap on Roger Hammer for the Charles \”Buster\” DiSalvo Trophy that goes to the driver with the most wins in the four-day meet. Hammer, shut out in six races, has five wins, two more than his challengers, and is the odds-on favorite for another driving title since he\’ll be on the track for seven of Thursday\’s eight races.

 

Columbia County, which ran away with the 2008 2YO colt points title by a whopping 22-point margin, earned both the Ward Fink Memorial cooler blanket and the Queens Crown for the fastest time of the card. He cut fractions of 29 flat, 59.4 and 1:30.1 en route to his fifth win of the year.

 

Hammer\’s Political Desire dueled the bay gelding owned by trainer John D. McMullen Jr. and Michelle McMullen of Armagh all the way into the final turn before Columbia County pulled away to win by 10-1/2 lengths. He now has 16 lifetime wins and almost $57,000 in earnings for 34 starts.

 

\”He\’s a nice colt, he really is,\” said Yoder, who races at The Meadows, which is closed this week. \”Actually, I trained him a little bit before the fair circuit started, and I try go to some of the fairs if they\’re close enough.

 

\”He gets a little anxious behind the gate, but once you get out of there, he\’s perfect. He wants to race. He wants to beat somebody. He makes your job a lot easier.\”

Yoder credited Hammer for \”a nice prompter there. He\’s pressuring me there, and I know my colt is probably best when he\’s on the front. That\’s where I like to race him.\”

 

Technicalybroadway, Schtark Gal and Naughty Pajamas were the other three winners in the Ward Fink Memorial Trot.

 

In the first division, Technicalybroadway extended his winning streak to six races with a 2:04.2 wire-to-wire trot for Schadel, who also is the trainer and co-owner with his wife, Christine. Two of the wins were at Pocono Downs after a close second. The bay gelding is 7-for-15 this year and 9-for-31 with winnings of more than $66,000.

 

\”He\’s a pretty nice horse,\” Schadel said. \”He can leave fast. He kind of controls the fractions, and that to his advantage.

 

\”The reason he\’s out here is he won himself up in class at the track (Pocono Downs). He trotted 57 up there a time or two. So, we\’ll race him at the fairs and then, this fall, we\’ll take him back to the track and go wherever he needs to go.\”

 

In the second division, McNeight kept Schtark Gal in the pocket behind Brickell\’s HRS Major Windfall until pulling him out coming down the lane. The bay gelding cleared the front-runner in deep stretch to cross the line 2-1/4 lengths in front in 2:05.3. Daniel Esh of Quarryville is the owner and Matt Aukamp is the trainer of Schtark Gal, now sporting two wins, two seconds and one third in seven starts this year.

 

Timmy Offutt\’s Naughty Pajamas, which tied for second in points behind Columbia County last year, led all the way in the fourth division, scoring in 2:04.1 for owner-trainer Joe Offutt of Woodsboro, Md. He was 3-1/4 lengths in front of Brickell\’s BS Surgin Don at the finish line.

 

With 26 entries, the Dunlap-Swales Memorial Trot had five divisions, with Lady B Pearl, BS Genny, RT\’s SJ and Keystone Twilight joining Annies Wonder in claiming the lion\’s share of the purses.

 

Brickell\’s BS Genny, which was second to Bank Star in 2008 2YO filly trotter points with 12 wins in 16 starts, earned the cooler blanket with a 2:05.4 mile for his fifth win in six races. Brickell guided the brown filly around Bruce Dufford\’s Go for Bold just before the half of the second division and beat McNeight\’s Kantrotalot to the finish line by 2-3/4 lengths. Owened by trainer Susan Brickell and William Brickell of Rochester Mills, near Punxsutawney, BS Genny has more than $11,000 in winnings in 10 trips to the post this year and is closing in on $53,000 lifetime.

 

Annies Wonder, third in last year\’s points race with six wins and $21,893 in earnings, just missed getting in the hunt for the Dunlap-Swales Memorial Trophy because she was uncontested coming down the stretch. Truitt had the bay filly on top by 11-1/2 lengths over Hammer\’s Cantab Doll at the finish. Trainer Cindy Truitt is co-owner of Annies Wonder, now sporting seven lifetime wins.

 

In the first division, Good\’s Lady B Pearl set the tone for the PASS trotters, inheriting the lead when Tourderail went off gait in the first turn and cruising to a five-length win in 2:06. Good also is owner and trainer of the bay filly, which has accumulated more than $45,000 already this season with two wins, five seconds and four thirds in 16 races. She was fourth in a $60,000 race at Pocono Downs on July 21. Her lifetime winnings have topped $73,000.

 

Rougeaux\’s RT\’s SJ denied Bank Star a second Clearfield County Fair win in the third division.

 

Yoder sent Bank Star around RT\’s SJ coming out of the first turn, but Rougeaux took his bay filly to the front on the second trip down the backside and went on to record a three-length win in 2:06.1. RT\’s SJ, owned by the Brocious Racing Stables of Marion Center, has four wins in six starts this year.

 

\”She had a head of steam out of the gate, but that filly, I can\’t grab her in the first turn or she\’ll get rough-gaited,\” Rougeaux said. \”So I had to let her float out of there. Then, I let that one (Bank Star) go down the backside. But I\’ve raced that filly a lot. I know what she does. I knew if I taxed her to the quarter, I\’d have her. No problem.\”

 

Schadel had Keystone Twilight on the front end from the start of the fifth division, and the bay filly he owns and trains won her fourth fair race in three weeks in 2:08.4. Hammer\’s Almost Dawn finished 2-1/4 lengths back.

 

\”She likes the half-mile track,\” Schadel said of his filly that has five wins and nearly $30,000 in earnings for 23 lifetime starts. \”She\’s been doing good out here, so we\’ll just keep her here.\”

 

Quaker State trotters got the program under way with Rougeaux and Good matching wins.

 

In the first dash, Rougeaux sent RT Sun Poco past Lasers Kayde in the first turn, and the bay filly earned The Progress cooler blanket with a 2:04.3 time that was 4/5 of a second off the 3YO filly track record. She beat Lasers Kayde by 7-1/4 lengths.

 

The win was the third in a row for RT Sun Poco, which won a qualifier at The Meadows in 2:02.2 after not racing as a two-year-old.

 

\”She\’s Canadian-bred, which means we can\’t race her in the Sires, and that\’s why we go and race her in the Quakers,\” noted Rougeaux, who also trains RT Sun Poco as one of the co-owners of the Brocious Racing Stables. \”Last year, she was a little bit sore, so we didn\’t push her.

 

\”We brought her back this year, and we\’re just bringing her to the fairs to get her ready for The Meadows this fall. She\’s really green and inexperienced.\”

 

Rougeaux entered her in a race at The Meadows, but she drew the eight hole and places seventh.

 

\”I didn\’t want to rough her up in her first start, so I took her off the gate and just minded my P\’s and Q\’s,\” Rougeaux said. \”She trotted home well, but when she went to pass horses, she kind of surged. She\’d go and then slow, go and slow. She just didn\’t know what she was doing yet.

 

\”So, we decided to bring her to the fairs to get her some experience, then send her down there to play with the big boys. If everything goes right, I think she\’ll be real successful this fall and this winter.\”

 

Good registered the first of her back-to-back wins behind Battle of Whits, which came from behind in the stretch to beat Anastasia Bullet by 2-1/2 lengths in 2:08.3. Good also is owner and trainer of the bay colt that posted his first win in nine 2009 starts after three rivals went off gait and Guilty Dreams was unable to hold on after leading all the way through the final turn.

 

The meet will conclude Thursday with 38 three-year-old pacers entered in eight races with purses totaling $30,464. Post time will be at noon.

 

Wednesday\’s results, with place, horse\’s name, post position in parenthesis and driver\’s name: