Expect a photo finish inHorse of the Year race
Some facts about the expected finalists for the top Dan Patch awards.
by Debbie Little
When it comes to voting for the Dan Patch Pacer, Trotter, and Horse of the Year (HOY), it would be easy to follow the words of Dragnet’s Joe Friday and just look at the facts, but, sometimes, a little context may be in order.
There has been much online discussion about at least two contenders for Pacer/Horse of the Year, Beau Jangles and Louprint, but off an impressive win defeating her elders in the FanDuel Open Mares Pace, 3-year-old Breeders Crown filly champ Miki And Minnie deserves to be part of the conversation.
Beau Jangles, the undefeated 2-year-old colt trained by Dr. Ian Moore and driven by Doug McClure, has 12 wins in 12 starts for earnings of $1,227,326. He won the Metro and the Breeders Crown, two of the three Grade 1 stakes in his division and did not compete in the third, The Governor’s Cup. He also won the Grade 3 Nassagaweya. His lifetime mark of 1:48.3, set in the Breeders Crown final, was a stakes, track, and Canadian record.
In addition to his victory at Grand River Raceway in the Battle of Waterloo, he tallied the remainder of his wins at his home track of Woodbine Mohawk Park, where the aforementioned Metro and Breeders Crown took place. Half of his victories came in the highly lucrative Ontario Sire Stakes program.
According to Moore, even if the Breeders Crown had not been in their backyard, their intention was to go.
“All the partners very much wanted to do the [Breeders Crown],” Moore said. “There was no discussion of anything else after the [OSS] Gold Final but that.”
Trainer Ron Burke’s 3-year-old colt sensation, Louprint, driven by Ronnie Wrenn, Jr., has a record of 10-1-0 in 12 starts this season with $1,025,971 in earnings. He won two of his division’s five Grade 1 stakes, the North America Cup and Little Brown Jug. Due to emergency surgery to remove a testicle, he scratched out of the Meadowlands Pace (July 12) early that week and was still recovering from surgery and missed the Adios (July 26). After suffering his first loss of the year in his Breeders Crown elim by a nose, he finished eighth in the Crown final after sustaining fractured ribs in a freak accident following getting stuck over his stall gate earlier in the week.
Burke, who also co-owns the homebred Louprint, said he didn’t even think about the possibility of the horse hurting his ribs, and that he didn’t have a mark on him after the stall gate incident.
“I just feel terrible that we didn’t realize it until after the race,” Burke said.
Burke said he doesn’t think Louprint would have gotten hurt had he been able to race from his home base.
“It’s tougher to move and race everyone [referring to the quality of competition on the Grand Circuit], but I take nothing from the other horse [Beau Jangles],” Burke said.
Louprint raced in four different jurisdictions at six tracks: Mohawk (four starts), The Meadows (three), Delaware (OH, two), and one start each at Harrah’s Philadelphia, Pocono, and The Red Mile. He set his lifetime mark of 1:46.3 in the Grade 2 Tattersalls Pace at The Red Mile.
Miki And Minnie, trained by Chris Ryder and driven by Dexter Dunn, has a record of 13-2-0 in 15 seasonal starts while banking $1,123,824. She won three of her division’s four Grade 1 races, the aforementioned Breeders Crown, Fan Hanover, and James Lynch Memorial, and did not compete in the Jugette four days after finishing second in the Kentucky Sire Stakes final. She also won the aforementioned Grade 2 FanDuel Open Mares Pace, and Grade 3 Jerry Silverman Memorial and Shady Daisy.
(Writer’s Note: This is the first year for the graded staking system, so it’s still a work in progress, however having the two male FanDuel races be a Grade 1 while the two female races are a Grade 2, seems to show the system needs tweaking).
Miki And Minnie raced in four different jurisdictions at five tracks — Mohawk and The Meadowlands (four starts each), Pocono and The Red Mile (two each), and one at Harrah’s Philadelphia — and set her lifetime mark of 1:48.2 in her dead-heat victory in the Breeders Crown final.
“Unfortunately, we lost two races this year, and both times she bled and she got beat [less than a length] both times, that’s when she had no Lasix,” Ryder said. “So, she’s unbeaten on Lasix, beat the aged mares by 3½ [lengths], and traveled [racing against Grand Circuit company].”
Members of the U.S. Harness Writers Association and the American Harness Racing Secretaries get to vote for the 12 Dan Patch divisional honors, Pacer, Trotter, and Horse of the Year. Each member selects a Pacer and Trotter of the Year from their 12 chosen divisional representatives, and a Horse of the Year, from said Pacer or Trotter of the Year.
Although the public may use the weekly Hambletonian Society/Breeders Crown Top 10 poll as a guide for how they think HOY voting will go, and indeed the leader in the final poll has gone on to be Horse of the Year in the past, it should be pointed out that a few of the 35 people who vote in the weekly poll are not members of USHWA and therefore don’t get to vote for Horse of the Year, and the ones that do, represent roughly one-sixth of the voting membership of USHWA combined with the race secretaries.
There are still two weeks left to go in the poll (it ends on Dec. 3) and so far this year, only four different horses have sat in the top spot: Beau Jangles, Louprint, Miki And Minnie, and Yo Tillie.
Beau Jangles has led the poll for the last four weeks, following Louprint’s loss in the Breeders Crown final. Although Beau started getting votes in the poll in week 4, he did not crack the Top 10 until week 11. He did not receive his initial first-place vote until week 14, but has continued to receive first-place votes since then except for the two weeks when Louprint was the unanimous choice, receiving all 35 first-place votes.
Louprint debuted at No. 1 in the poll in week 1, and is the only horse to receive first-place votes in all 23 weeks of the poll, including the aforementioned two weeks when he was the unanimous choice.
Miki And Minnie debuted in the poll in week 1 ranked third and has never fallen out of the Top 10. Her initial first-place vote came in week 8 when she took over the top spot in the poll; a spot she held for six weeks.
Three-year-old filly trotter Yo Tillie started receiving votes in week 3 and broke into the Top 10 in week 5 receiving her inaugural first-place vote of the season. She has not dropped out of the Top 10 since and took the top spot in week 15.
Of the five trotters — Emoticon Legacy, Lexus Kody, Nordic Catcher S, Super Chapter, and Yo Tillie — that have received first-place votes, the Andrew Harris-trained, Todd McCarthy-driven Yo Tillie has been the most consistent by far, receiving first-place votes in 14 of the 23 weeks, compared with Emoticon Legacy (five weeks), Nordic Catcher S (two) and one week each for Lexus Kody and Super Chapter.
The fight for Trotter of the Year will likely be between Yo Tillie and Lexus Kody.
In 12 starts this season, Yo Tillie had a record of 11-1-0 while banking $979,195. She was not eligible to some of her division’s top stakes, including the Grade 1 Hambletonian Oaks, but did win two Grade 1 events: the Breeders Crown and Delmonica Hanover. She also won the Grade 2 Delvin Miller Memorial. Her lifetime best of 1:50.2 came in the final of the New Jersey Classic at The Meadowlands.
Harris, who co-owns the filly with Bill Pollock and Bruce Areman, said he never considered racing Yo Tillie against her elders in the $175,000 FanDuel Open Mares Trot.
“She’s KYSS [eligible], which starts in April [2026], and they go for great money,” Harris said. “To start that early she was going to have to get her break earlier. For me, I didn’t see the incentive to stay in training a month longer and miss good weather opportunities for turn out in Kentucky.
“If the purse was higher [for the FanDuel] we would have probably done it, but to race a young filly against aged mares for potentially 80K in winnings at most, seemed like I would just be robbing from next season… I felt like she needed every bit of her well-earned vacation. She was good to me; I’m going to be good to her.”
Trained by Burke and driven by Yannick Gingras, 7-year-old gelding Lexus Kody has a seasonal record of 11-3-4 in 21 starts with earnings of $1,317,651. He won three of his division’s five Grade 1 events: the FanDuel Open Trot, Yonkers International Trot and Maple Leaf Trot, where he set his lifetime mark of 1:49.1. He also won two Grade 2 races, the Caesars Trotting Classic via dead heat and the Dayton Derby.
As to whether Lexus Kody Do deserves to be Trotter of the Year, Burke said, “For sure. The International Trot trumps all.”
In the previous 78 years of Dan Patch Horse of the Year voting, only four 2-year-olds — Bret Hanover (1964), Nevele Pride (1967), Niatross (1979), and JK She’salady (2014) — were chosen for that prestigious honor.
