by James Platz

Stop me if you’ve heard this story before. Kyle Wilfong, one of the leading drivers at Harrah’s Hoosier Park Racing & Casino, picks up a horse to drive in the Dan Patch Stakes. He’s never sat behind the horse before. They are sent off at double-digit odds in the track’s signature race… and he wins a thriller. The narrative in the 2024 edition was nearly identical to that of 2023, when he steered Ponda Warrior to an improbable victory. Friday night (Aug. 9), Wilfong and Ohio-sired standout Dunkin’ scored a 20-1 upset win in the $300,000 event with a 1:49.1 performance, finishing a length ahead of the field on the strength of a late charge to the wire.

“You don’t know if you’re even going to have a drive in the Dan Patch,” Wilfong said. “For me to be able to pick a horse up like Ponda Warrior the first year, a horse I had never driven before, and be able to hop on him and have success, and the same thing this year with picking up Dunkin’ and it working out the way it did, it’s just unreal. I may not get a drive in this race again; I’m just thrilled it’s working out great now.”

Like in 2023, Wilfong found out he was listed on a Dan Patch horse via text. Last year he received notice in advance of the post draw that he would get the nod on Ponda Warrior if driver John DeLong chose to stick with Little Rocket Man. In all likelihood, the 33-year-old driver would have again sat behind last year’s winner had he dropped in the box for a title defense. But with Ponda Warrior sidelined, Wilfong was not listed on a horse when post positions were drawn last Tuesday night. Instead, Tim Tetrick was down on the Mary Jo Clegg-owned 4-year-old. When Tetrick opted not to make the trip, trainer Nick Clegg had to find an alternative.

“We scrambled around for a driver,” Nick said of choosing a pilot. “The reason you want to hire those top guys is not because they are that much better than everybody else, it’s because the pressure doesn’t mean that much to them. Sometimes things just work out, right?”

After the driver changes were finalized for Fridays’ program, Wilfong was notified by a friend of the substitution.

“I knew nothing about it,” he said. “One of my friends texted me and said, ‘Hey, have you talked to Nick yet?’ I said, ‘Nick who?’ He said, ‘Nick Clegg. You’re driving Dunkin’ in the Dan Patch.’ I was just the lucky guy.”

Leading up to Friday’s 31st running of the Dan Patch Stakes, Wilfong and Clegg chatted via Facebook Messenger. The trainer’s instructions for his driver were simple: get away from the gate clean.

“I just had one main objective and that was to stay pacing out of the gate,” said Wilfong. “That’s where he struggles. Nick said, ‘If you can keep him pacing out of the gate, you can win the Dan Patch. That’s all there is to it.’”

Nick also said: “He gets so ready that he gets borderline pissed off if you put him in the gate, and he just goes to cantering. It’s not like he makes a mistake or makes a break. He literally just goes to cantering.”

Starting from post 2 in the field of 10, Wilfong left unhurried with Dunkin’ finding a spot in fifth along the rail as Christchurch took command followed by El Ray, Buzzsaw Russ and Charlie May. Christchurch and LeWayne Miller would click off fractions of :26 and :54.3 before DeLong would pull the right line and begin his move to the front, bringing with him Charlie May and Dunkin’.

“Once we got out of the gate and all the dust settled, the fractions were good,” Wilfong said. “We were third over shortly onto the backside following Buzzsaw Russ and Charlie May, who I thought were the two best horses in the race.”

Buzzsaw Russ powered past the leader racing out of the last turn, and it looked as if the Indiana-sired entry would sprint away from the field. Wilfong, flipping off Charlie May’s back and with a clear path to the wire, appeared to stall. Nick, watching from his home in Ohio, feared the worst.

“Halfway down the stretch, he was going backwards, what appeared going backwards, for the first time in his life,” Nick said. “My first thought was, ‘Oh my God, something’s wrong?’ I was borderline embarrassed. Eleven seconds later, it was an unbelievable feeling. I know that if you give him clear sailing, his grit and his want is unbelievable. His capabilities are like no other. He can go as fast, when he wants to, as a horse possibly can.”

Trace Tetrick and favorite Coach Stefanos, sprinting home in :25.3, proved a valuable motivator for Dunkin’ late in the lane.

“Once that horse started racing him on the outside, he just dug right in, he wasn’t going to be passed,” Wilfong said. “He may have needed a little coaxing to get by, but he sure did it.”

Wilfong is now one of seven drivers to win the Dan Patch twice, and joins Montrell Teague as the only reinsmen to secure victories in their first two attempts.

Dunkin’ surged ahead of a three-horse pack in the final strides to earn his ninth win of the season and 36th overall. Buzzsaw Russ and Coach Stefanos hit the wire together to dead-heat for second, with Charlie May in the photo narrowly separated from the pair in fourth. Dunkin’ paid $42.00, $14,20, and $7, in the victory.

“First and foremost, anybody who works as hard as Betty deserves one Dunkin’ in their lifetime,” Nick said of his partner in the husband-wife team. “We’ve raced 30 horses at the fairs in the last three days. A lot of them won, but I’m going to be honest with you, Dunkin’ winning that race was the highlight. I had 160 congratulations within five minutes on my phone, so many that I had to delete them because my phone was running out of space.”

A $7,000 yearling purchase at Harrisburg, Dunkin’s Dan Patch victory pushed his career bankroll over the $600,000 mark, with $353,000 accumulated this season while racing out of the Scott Di Domenico barn at Yonkers. The winning time is nearly two seconds better than his previous mark. The gelded son of Pet Rock—Skinny Dip was bred by Stonegate Standardbred Farms in New Jersey. Dunkin’ began his career on the Ohio fair circuit. Now he has a Grand Circuit win under his belt, and an invitation to come back to Hoosier Park in the fall for the Harrah’s Hoosier Park Pacing Derby.

“It’s all him,” Nick said. “It wouldn’t matter if Scotty D had him or you had him and tied him to an oak tree in your back yard and hand fed him three times a day, Dunkin’ would be a champion, it’s just who he is. I’d love to take credit that I bought him for $7,000 as a baby and I turned him into this. Dude, Dunkin’s just a champion, period.”