by Brett Sturman

Including eliminations conducted for the 58th running of the Adios Pace at The Meadows, much focus this past weekend came from racing throughout Pennsylvania. The potentially biggest star though, came in a 2-year-old Pennsylvania sire stake near the conclusion of the weekend on Sunday evening (July 21) at Pocono Downs. That’s where the 2-year-old filly Papi Grad (Papi Rob Hanover—Betterthangraduate) continued her dominating ways.

In just two career starts prior to Sunday, Papi Grad already received the 13th highest points total of all horses in training from the Hambletonian Society/Breeders Crown weekly poll. This week, or soon enough, she will formally be in the Top 10.

A $47,000 Lexington Selected Yearling Sale grad from 2023 and from the first crop of Papi Rob Hanover, Papi Grad began her career with identical 1:51.1 wins at The Meadows and at Pocono, both by the same margins of 10¼ lengths. In her first win, she came from off the pace with a back half-mile in about :53. Sunday, she paced her third consecutive 1:51.1 mile and crushed once again, this time by 6½ lengths. The time component is one thing, but Papi Grad has been making well regarded and otherwise talented fillies look totally inferior.

Papi Grad is bred to be fast at 2, but at the same time is bred to be fast, period. Her dam Betterthangraduate was an New York Sire Stakes winner at 2, though her star-laden pedigree can really be seen in her prior generation with her second dam being the world champion Western Graduate. The $1.3 million career earner stormed through her 2-year-old stakes engagements throughout Pennsylvania, just as Papi Grad is doing now. In just six foals, Western Graduate has produced stakes champions I’m Some Graduate, who was a 1:50.3 winner in Pennsylvania at 2, and Summa Cum Laude who posted a 1:50.2 mark as a 2-year-old.

It’s way, way too early to start comparing Papi Grad to some of the 2-year-old pacing filly greats from this century, of which there’s been plenty. But I can’t recall many getting off to the type of start Papi Grad has — three wins by almost 30 lengths against stakes competition — and if she continues to move forward, maybe she can do what JK She’salady did and become just the second ever 2-year-old filly to be Horse of the Year.

In other 2-year-old pacing events, Lily White Hanover also won at Pocono on Sunday in her PASS division and did so in a time of 1:51.3 to remain unbeaten through two career starts. That time established the second fastest by a 2-year-old filly in the early season thus far on a five-eighths mile track behind only that of Papi Grad. The fastest freshman filly overall goes to Chantilly, a Big Jim filly out of a Bettors Delight mare who kicked home with a vengeance in an Ontario Gold division a week ago to win in 1:50.4.

On the colt side, Swingtown, a $160,000 Ohio Selected Yearling Sale purchase by Downbytheseaside established himself Sunday as the fastest juvenile on a half-mile track, pacing powerfully to a 1:52.1 win at Northfield which equaled the same win time from his start prior in Ohio Sire Stakes action at Scioto. The fastest 2-year-old colt on all size tracks currently stands with Railroad Station (Sweet Lou—Rodeo Rosie), a $110,000 Lexington Selected Yearling Sale buy who followed up his 1:51.1 two back in PA All-Stars with another 1:51.1 in a PASS event Saturday at The Meadows during the card for the Adios eliminations.

Speaking of the Adios eliminations, last year’s 2-year-old divisional winner Captain Albano rebounded strongly after battles throughout the North America Cup and Meadowlands Pace to score decisively as expected in a time of 1:49.2 and stamped himself as the Adios favorite, but more intriguing is what happened in the first of the two eliminations. That’s where Wish You Well shocked to the tune of $59.

In the deeper of the two eliminations, Wish You Well hadn’t shown much form prior to the Adios this year at 3, though he did enter off a crisp win time in a lower-level condition race at Chester. A stronger 2-year-old where he was a Governor’s Cup finalist and second earlier in the year in a fast race to Newsroom, he absolutely flew home seemingly back in peak form on Saturday.

Charted eight lengths back in the stretch, he closed in :25.2 to win by almost two lengths in the end. The next fastest final quarter by anyone in that race was :26.4 and after that it was all :27 and slower. With about an eighth-of-a-mile to go, it looked like he was swapped out for Albatross against $4,000 claimers as he kicked it into high gear; you don’t see closes like that at The Meadows or for that matter any five-eighths-mile track too often. It sets up for a duel between him and Captain Albano with Huntingforchrome maybe not too far behind. Clever Cody made the final after being hard used early and has been a difficult one to gauge.

In Sunday’s $100,000 Clara Barton at Plainridge Park, Sylvia Hanover got her first win of the year in her seventh race, a well-deserved score in a fast 1:48.2 after battling it out against Twin B Joe Fresh in nearly all her recent starts prior. The footnote to the win is that it came on the driving change to Tim Tetrick. Driver Bob McClure has essentially been the only driver that Sylvia Hanover has ever known and has piloted her to divisional honors at both ages 2 and 3, but you do wonder if at least for future races in the U.S., if a change of scenery to Tetrick will stick in the midst of her 4-year-old campaign.

The feature that day at Plainridge was the $250,000 Spirit of Massachusetts and it was interesting to see 4-year-old Chapercraz the favorite over his Burke stablemate and both the reigning Spirit and divisional winner, It’s Academic who was making his second start back on the year. It’s Academic proved best over Chapercraz who was second best with Canadian invader Logan Park setting the pace but finishing third.