2-year-old pacers have never been faster, earlier
by Brett Sturman
In a race at Hoosier Park over the U.S. holiday weekend on July 3, a 2-year-old pacing colt named Dancingdreamer won a race for Indiana Sire Stake eligibles by over five lengths in a time of 1:50.4. The race chart was posted on X by Gabe Prewitt and I responded to the post with the comment, “Fastest 2YO mile ever before July 4th? Maybe?”
What do you think?
It wasn’t long at all after the Hoosier race where maybe this early of a sub-1:51 freshman mile was more common than I first thought. That’s because literally the very next day on July 4, a 2-year-old pacing filly named A Clean Deal won her Ontario Sires Stakes (OSS) Gold Series race at Woodbine Mohawk Park in the same 1:50.4 time in her second career start. And as if that wasn’t enough, the next night again, on July 5, a 2-year-old colt named Beau Jangles was even faster, winning an OSS Gold Series race in 1:50.1.
So obviously, this must happen all the time, right?
Thanks to the crack research staff in the statistics department from the United States Trotting Association, from which all findings in this column are attributed, we have an answer. Prior to the events of two weeks ago, there has been only one other time in the sport’s history where a mile of 1:50.4 or faster was paced prior to July 4. That race came on June 24, 2022 when the horse Life’s A Puzzle won an New Jersey Sires Stakes (NJSS) race at The Meadowlands in 1:50.4. To date, that remains the fastest June mile ever paced by a 2-year-old.
The statistics become more interesting the more they are drilled into. In all, there have been 20 sub-1:51 miles paced by a 2-year-old ever in the months of June or July of their respective 2-year-old seasons. Amazingly, 14 of those 20 have taken place just since 2022, including three of the four before July 6 taking place a couple weeks ago over the course of one weekend!
For reference, the first occurrences of a July 1:50.4 or better mile was established in 2007 by Duneside Perch in the NJSS final in 1:50.2, and then one-week later Dali went 1:50.4 in the Niatross. As an aside, that set up a highly anticipated Woodrow Wilson a short time later on Aug. 3 between those two where in that race Dali and Luc Ouellette rode up on second over cover and surged from there to win in 1:50.2.
Back to the June mile established by Life’s A Puzzle, 2022 proved to be a watershed year as seven of the 20 sub-1:51 miles came from that year. In one night alone at The Meadowlands on July 15 that year, winners Blue Lou, Hungry Man and Hungry Angel Boy all paced miles of 1:50.1, 1:50.1, and 1:50.2, respectively; that’s insanity. And whereas Life’s A Puzzle paced the fastest June mile ever, his soon-to-be rival and current top FFA horse to this day Voukefalas, owns the fastest 2-year-old July mile ever when he won his NJSS Final on July 22 in a time of 1:50 flat.
Voukefalas was third in his debut when essentially parked the mile, and still closed off the pace with a :26 final quarter in that June 24 mile won by Life’s A Puzzle. I asked the only trainer Voukefalas has ever known, Mike Russo, about what time means anymore, if anything, when it comes to training down 2-year-olds because of how fast they all go right away anyway.
“There’s some impacts with time when training down, but there’s no positive outcome if you’re trying to put a horse into situations they shouldn’t be in timewise,” said Russo. “You have to keep them on a trajectory going in the right direction and that entails keeping them at the right speeds where they’re well within themselves, but you can’t push them to hit certain marks where it just doesn’t mean anything yet.”
Russo gave the example, “If you were to write a [hypothetical] script and say I trained Voukefalas and kept records and on March 15 he was say 2:20 or 2:10 or whatever you want, so now every horse if they’re going to be that good as to go hit those marks, that’s going to end in disaster. Putting the miles in the horses is the big thing; I’ll train a horse faster or slower depending on the horse but it’s all how they feel at a certain point.
“Now, time does take on more meaning when the races are there. When Voukefalas was making his first start, he had his qualifiers and obviously I was looking forward to these races because I had such a good feeling about him, and I looked through who he was against and I honestly thought he’s going to have to go in 1:52 right off the bat, that’s what I figured. So, I trained him in a way I thought would put him in a position to be able to go in a 1:52 and change mile, and of course they just blasted out in 1:50.4. But he’s held that form his entire career and has been one of the top pacers in his group ever since.”
The analysis that began in looking at June and July sub-1:51 miles extend to parallel findings when looking at the totality of 2-year-old sub-1:50 miles in any month. To date, there have been 93 instances of 2-year-olds pacing a mile of 1:49.4 or faster. Of those 93, nearly half of them (41) have all come just in 2022, 2023 and 2024.
Miles of 1:48.4 or better? There have been 12, but none before 2018. Just last year produced six of those 12.
Lastly, and interestingly, there has never been a sub-1:51 mile paced by a 2-year-old in the month of December.
