On the search for new stars in Bobby Weiss Series

by Brett Sturman

Now officially into spring, marked not only by the calendar but by the gradual return of top stakes prospects, a select group of horses will take most of the headlines from here on out. That includes 2-year-old pacing champion Loua Dipa who returned this past Wednesday to a qualifying win at The Meadows, as well as Horse of the Year pacer Beau Jangles who is scheduled to take to the track today (April 10) in a qualifier at Southern Oaks Training Center in Florida.

Outside of the already known horses, the annual late-closing Bobby Weiss Series at Pocono Downs offers an opportunity for much less familiar and less accomplished-to-date horses to make an early impression in the sophomore season and gain both confidence and momentum. There’s been enough instances through the years where a horse or two emerges from the series to play a role and make a name for themselves as the stakes season carries through the summer and, who knows, maybe can even challenge the very best 3-year-olds.

This year’s Bobby Weiss series got kicked off across three days last week for all four sophomore divisions, starting with the pacing colts on Saturday. For non-winners of 2 races of $30,000 lifetime as of Feb. 1, the most impressive winner across all divisional races and a somewhat surprising one at that, was a horse named Twin B Thriller.

In the sixth race that day, Twin B Thriller perhaps aided by the rail starting position, blazed the way through every call of the race and rocketed home to a win in a time of 1:49.4. Fractions he set in that race were :26.4, :53.4, 1:21.1, before wrapping up in a sub-1:50 time, all while making his first start since last September. By comparison, that time of 1:49.4 even bested the time of the winners/over race that day which consisted of fast horses Backstreet Shadow and Lou Hill – that race went in 1:50.2.

The Twin B Thriller win came on the heels of a couple 1:55 qualifiers, but to come right out and lower that by over five seconds in his first start out was eye catching. Though, this isn’t a horse that has come from nowhere. He raced six times last year, winning in four of those (two of which were by wide margins) and established a freshman mark of 1:52.4 over the same Pocono track. There’s a foundation in him established last year and although he broke in that lone stakes try at Tioga in the Reynolds to end his campaign last year, he’s a horse that already deserves merit not only for the remainder of this series, but as the season goes on.

Another winner from that Saturday worth keeping tabs on is the Joe Bongiorno-trained Ooglesaurus, who was a 1:52 victor at odds of 1-5 with Brett Beckwith driving. Ooglesaurus began his campaign last month with a win at The Meadowlands, before finishing third in his next-out race to stablemate Sneaky Squeaky, who came back to win again next out in a time of 1:50.4. Already two-for-three on the season, it’ll be interesting to see if he can keep moving forward throughout the series. He, along with other pacing colt winners, which included Magic Monarch and the second-placed-first Barrow, are both back in-to-go Saturday (April 11) as the series continues with leg 2.

The pacing fillies are just as interesting. Of those races that were contested this past Tuesday (April 7), the fastest of the divisions was won by a filly named Vanna By The River, but I think the one that the series could go through is a filly by the name of Miss Jum Jabber.

Miss Jum Jabber came into the Bobby Weiss Series having just two career starts prior, having not made her career debut until March 13. But she’s shown a ton of early promise in not only winning her opening leg at Pocono in a time of 1:55.4 (LQ :26.4), but also by winning her second career start in a time of 1:51.1 at The Meadowlands with a last quarter of :26.2. That came following her debut race a week earlier when she closed in :25 flat for trainer Brett Pelling, who was quoted after that Meadowlands win as saying, “She is [Sire Stakes] dual eligible, so after a leg or two in the Weiss at Pocono, I’ll make a call as to her future.”

As entries came out for Tuesday’s leg 2, Miss Jum Jabber is absent, as perhaps indicated by Pelling weeks ago that she might be. Who is in, is the aforementioned Vanna By The River, who was a dominant winner in 1:53.2, seemingly out of nowhere at odds of 16-1.

Vanna By The River entered her race earlier this week with an 0-for-12 record with only one second-place finish and wasn’t particularly threatening in either two races in 2026 up to that point. But maybe inspired by the driver change from trainer Cory Stratton to newly-minted USHWA Rising Star Braxten Boyd, Vanna By The River coasted to the front, never let anyone get close, and opened up late when asked. Vanna By The River will square off in leg 2 against another leg 1 winner in last year’s New York Sire Stake finalist American Cheese who scored at odds of 1-9 for Jared Bako training and Jason Bartlett driving.

As evident by these select horses, there’s the potential for some real talent within the pacing divisions. With still two more preliminary legs and finals that will take place the last week of the month, perhaps a couple of the promising 3-year-olds can make names for themselves and maybe eventually take on the accomplished returning ones.