Plenty of scores still to settle in FanDuel Championships and Fall Final Four

More than $2.6 million in purses will be offered with divisional implications on the line throughout the stakes events at The Meadowlands on Saturday.

by Brett Sturman

Saturday’s (Nov. 15) mid-November race card featuring the four FanDuel Championships and major stakes for all 2-year-old divisions is not only the best last race card of the year, but featuring six Grade 1’s and two Grade 2’s, I’d put this year’s one in particular, right up there as easily one of the best cards throughout the entire season. Every FanDuel Championship is compelling — which includes 3-year-old filly Miki And Minnie facing older Breeders Crown champion Always B Naughty — as well as emerging 2-year-olds in the Fall Final Four races. Here are my thoughts on the major stakes action throughout the night.

FANDUEL CHAMPIONSHIP OPEN MARES TROT

In an HRU column last week, Murray Brown picked Warrawee Michelle as his Dan Patch winner for this division on the strength of her rallying Breeders Crown win over Elista Hanover, and he’s probably not wrong. It is very close, however, and this FanDuel Championship serves as the rubber match for these two rivals as each has beaten the other twice this year. Warrawee Michelle has the recent Breeders Crown win, of course, to go along with her win over Elista Hanover in the $230,000 Graduate final. To her credit, Elista Hanover has beaten Warrawee Michelle in the $425,000 Hambletonian Maturity as well as the $117,500 Girl Power at The Meadowlands. When looking a little further, a case could be made as well for M-M’s Dream. She actually has more wins than the other two mentioned mares (four) and has the fastest win time of the group (1:49.4) coming from her Steele Memorial upset on Hambletonian Day. Since then, she went onto beat Elista Hanover a couple of more times in a Miss Versatility leg at Delaware, OH, and then won the $250,000 Dayton Oaks Derby. Could this FanDuel Championship become the deciding factor?

FANDUEL CHAMPIONSHIP OPEN MARES PACE

In the history of the FanDuel Championships only one pacer (male or female) has ever won the race against older rivals, and it came two years ago when Twin B Joe Fresh did it as a 3-year-old, besting older mares that included in that race the mare Max Contract. Those same connections of Ryder and Dunn will be out to do it again with Miki And Minnie, who is already a cinch to take home her second straight Dan Patch as her division’s best. She was able to luckily cling to a dead heat win in the Breeders Crown to a massive longshot, and the filly with that seasonal record of 14 12-2-0 will need to bring her very best as she goes against fellow Breeders Crown winner Always B Naughty. Perhaps a beneficiary, somewhat ironically, of the late scratch of Ryder/Dunn’s Twin B Joe Fresh, she went on to romp in her Breeders Crown win in a time of 1:48.1, besting her career mark taken from the prior week in 1:48.2. She enters her FanDuel Championship in obviously career best form and 26-year-old driver Austin Hanners looks to make another early impression here at The Meadowlands, just as he did at Woodbine Mohawk Park.

GOLDSMITH MAID 2-YEAR-OLD FILLY TROT

It would seem like the demon hunter Nezuko Kamado S has the decided class edge over this group on paper, but we’ll see how it plays out on the track. A 1:52.4 winner at Hoosier from September in a $259,800 Kentuckiana Stallion Management Stake, she won her Breeders Crown elimination two back and was the beaten favorite, finishing third in the Breeders Crown final. It’s not apparent in the charted line from that race, but she was briefly three wide when following cover to the top in between calls in that race and it’s excusable she gave it away late considering the half mile fraction in that race of :55.1. It was just two weeks ago that Meadowlands driver Jonathan Ahle got a signature career win with Busy Miss Lissy S in the $125,000 Kindergarten final and those two will look to go even higher now with $462,000 on the line. Busy Miss Lissy S, who is six of eight on the year, represents one of the three Svanstedt trotters in here, going along with All Time Trot S and Isabella Bi. Atlantic Summer closed well in her Breeders Crown elimination two back in that race won by eventual final winner Storybook Love; beaten odds-on favorite in the Matron last out at Dover at the hands of surprise winner Heart For Two.

FANDUEL CHAMPIONSHIP OPEN PACE

What a year it’s been for this group, and for Ervin Hanover in particular. The Breeders Crown elim winner amplified his game even further in the Crown with the driver change to — you guessed it — Dunn, and that duo went onto a Canadian record smashing performance of 1:46.2 in the Breeders Crown final. Ervin Hanover hasn’t lost a race going back to Aug. 30, and even that was only by a margin of a head in that Canadian Pacing Derby final. He’s reeled off five wins since then and looks mightily imposing from the rail in the FanDuel Open Pace Championship as he looks to put a bow on what will be an award-winning season. Rival Ken Hanover had to do it uncovered in the Breeders Crown final and could certainly have a say; Coaches Corner has shown this year he can compete against these on the larger sized tracks and goes for Engblom and Bartlett. Captain Albano prepared easily for this race with a qualifier over the track last Saturday; Maximus Miki comes off a gritty win in the Potomac at Rosecroft two weeks ago.

THREE DIAMONDS 2-YEAR-OLD FILLY PACE

You can’t say enough about Loua Dipa over these past couple of months and she’s tracking to complete one of the greatest seasons ever by a 2-year-old pacing filly. She absolutely toyed with overmatched rivals throughout the Breeders Crown, and three races back was that all-time 2-year-old filly record mile of 1:48 flat in her International Stallion Stakes win, besting the prior speed mark by a 2-year-old filly by three-fifths-of-a-second. It’s second only to that even more ridiculous mile of 1:47.4 put up this year by the 2-year-old gelding Odds On Mr Mamba at Hoosier. Looking back now, it’s hard to believe she actually lost a couple of times earlier in the season in Pennsylvania; can’t wait to see what she brings here in the Three Diamonds. Possible upsetters could be her Burke barn mates. Like Atlantic Summer two races above, I’m A Lou Lou was a Burke beaten odds-on favorite in the Matron and that followed her Breeders Crown races where she was hampered by poor posts. Four back though was a 1:49.3 winner at Lexington and she’ll be put into play in this race. She’s A Bulldog rallied nicely to be second to Loua Dipa in the Breeders Crown final; zero-for-eight maiden goes from McClure to Dunn. It’s been quite a year at The Meadowlands for Lauren Tritton as a driver and she’ll get a shot here with Darlin’s Angel who steps way up; would make for quite a story for the filly out of the great Darlin’s Delight.

GOVERNOR’S CUP 2-YEAR-OLD COLT PACE

In the Governor’s Cup, one that catches my eye is Gentleman’s Club. He doesn’t yet have the open stakes credentials that some others in here can claim, but he’s impressed greatly here at The Meadowlands over the last two weeks. That includes last week when as just a 2-year-old, he beat a field of nice enough looking 3-year-olds, and did so while brushing to the lead off a quick clip of :54.3; you don’t see that too often. Those recent performances make me wonder just how good Ohio champion Lindy Dragonwater is, who proved superior to this one in September OHSS races at Scioto and Dayton. Going second start Andrew McCarthy, how will the success of beating those 3-year-olds in 1:50.2 last week compare to some of these high-quality 2-year-olds? Elsewhere, Fragment comes off a win in the Matron at Dover for the powerhouse team of Engblom and Bartlett, and he was a solid runner-up in his Breeders Crown elimination three back to Brandon Blvd in a time of 1:49. Burke trainees in the race who are debatably the class of the field draw posts 9 and 10, so some bad luck there, and each were Breeders Crown finalists. Ubrute was beaten only a length-and-a-half by Beau Jangles two back in his Breeders Crown elimination, and Melillo was only beaten by the same margin by that rival in the Breeders Crown final. Show Me Your Ace made an uncovered attempt in the Breeders Crown final and could present a threat too.

FANDUEL CHAMPIONSHIP OPEN TROT

Conventional wisdom seems to suggest that Lexus Kody is all but a cinch for divisional honors but Periculum should not be discounted entirely. The accolades this year of Lexus Kody are well known where he swept through stakes races that included the Yonkers International Trot, Maple Leaf Trot (in an all-time Canadian mark), to go along with the Dayton Derby and the Caesars Trotting Classic where he dead-heated with Periculum. For Periculum, his big money wins have been in both the Crawford Farms and John Cashman as well as that dead-heat just mentioned with Lexus Kody, and the only time all year he’s been worse than second was that debacle of a trip in the Yonkers International Trot. He’s yet to lose at The Meadowlands this year and if he were to cap off the year with a win here, he would finish with a pretty imposing record and resume. Aetos Kronos S typically figures a chance with these too, but hasn’t won since the summer and was outkicked in that qualifier last Saturday by both Ari Ferrari J and Periculum. French Wine goes fifth start for trainer Nancy Takter and just beat many of these in the Breeders Crown three weeks ago.

VALLEY VICTORY 2-YEAR-OLD COLT TROT

It’s another Breeders Crown winner on the scene to cap off the stakes action on a stellar card, and that’s Spencer Hanover who gave driver Jason Bartlett one of his first two career Breeders Crown wins. No matter what happens it won’t likely be enough to overthrow Apex from the top of the division but a win in the $421,000 Valley Victory to go on top of his $700,000 Breeders Crown win and $250,000 Big Apple win at Vernon two starts prior to that would be quite a way to round out his 2-year-old season and make him one of the early ones to watch for next year’s road to the Hambletonian. Diabolic Hill will be a top contender in this race and he rode the cover of Spencer Hanover in the Breeders Crown final when he was a hard trying runner-up.