Wildcat Abby (Casey Leonard) won for the seventh time in 13 career starts Thursday in a leg of the Incredible Tillie state-bred freshman filly pace series at Springfield. (Al Brodsky Photo) 

By Mike Paradise for the IHHA

 It’s day two at Springfield of Hawthorne’s Night of Champions series and it’s strictly for ICF 3-year-olds of both sexes and gaits.

 Leg two is an opportunity for those sophomores nominated to the champions series to earn points towards a starting berth in their respective divisions for the finals to be held in November.

 Points are dispersed with 50 awarded for a first-place finish, 25 for a second, 12 for third, 8 for fourth, 5 for fifth and 1 for starting. The 10 highest point earners advance to a championship.

 While two divisions of each 3-year-old class will be contested Friday, the Plum Peachy for filly pacers will go in three splits with the fourth race first group the most anticipated with division leaders Hypeyourbestieup (Travis Seekman) and Fox Valley Sadie (Kyle Husted) slugging it out.

 The Jamaica Patton trained Hypeyourbestieup saw her four-race winning streak snapped nine days ago in the Illinois Department of Agriculture championship by the Amy Husted stable’s Fox Valley Sadie, getting even for an earlier loss to the Time To Roll filly back in late July at Du Quoin.

 Between them, the two fillies have won 11 races this season, six for Hypeyourbestieup and five for Fox Valley Husted.

 The Steve Searle stable’s Lous Private Eye (Casey Leonard) who lost for the first time this year on a mile track, looks to avenge that defeat to Tru Cash (Marcus Miller) in the first of a pair of Erwin F. Dygert Memorial groupings for second season male trotters.

 Lous Private Eye’s second tier start in his last outing gave Tru Cash, who had the two-post, a lead the Erv Miller trainee never relinquished in his winning 1:55.3 mile. However. This time around Lous Private Eye is in the two-post and Tru Cash has to buck the outside eight-hole.

 Later on the 15-race card, the talented 3-year-old gelding Gorgeous Big Guy (Marcus Miller) is in a sweet spot with the rail to make it 15 consecutive victories in the first of two Robert F. Carey divisions. The Erv Miller trainee has never lost a race to a fellow Illinois bred pacer.

 Whiskey Lou (Casey Leonard), from the barn of Curt Grummel, looks to begin a new winning streak after he was knocked off stride a little more than a week ago in her IDOA championship start. Again, the second tier played a role in the filly’s demise.

 Whiskey Lou’s stablemate Calypso Moon did win that championship and will race today in the second Beulah Dygert Memorial split with Marcus Miller taking over the driver chores.

 THURSDAY’S RECAP: The Night of Champions series legs on Thursday got off to a surprising start when Curt Grummel’s Almost Home (Kyle Husted) came on in the lane to win for the first time with a 2:00.2 mile in the initial Fox Valley Flan division for 3-year-old ICF trotting fillies.

 The second split went as expected when Kays In Charge (Travis Seekman) from the barn of Tom Simmons rattled off her third consecutive victory by almost six lengths with a 1:58.3 mile, already her fifth of the season.

 The Kadabra trotting divisions for state-bred freshman colts and geldings went to Sunburnt Silverado and Mustang Dannu, both capably handled by Casey Leonard.

 Sunburnt Silverado, another talented trotter from the barn of Curt Grummel, won in first over fashion in 2:00.2, his third in six lifetime starts to go along with a trio of seconds, while the Steve Searle trained Mustang Danny got away with slow middle quarters on the front end and prevailed in 2:01 flat in the second grouping.

 Mustang Danny also won the first leg of the Kadabra and already has clinched a starting berth in its series final.

 Thebeautifulthings, trained by Amy Husted and driven by her husband Kyle, coasted to her sixth straight triumph in an Incredible Tillie leg, the first of three splits, while under a hold in the 1:57.2 mile. The second “Tillie” leg saw Marcus Miller take Fox Valley Jasmine to the front where she held off Fox Valley Mygirl by about a length at the end of a 1:54.3 mile. Casey Leonard nicely rated Wildcat Abby to a front-stepping 1:55.2 win in the third grouping for trainer Roshun Trigg.

 The Kimberly Roth trained 2-year-old gelding Dialogue (Kyle Wilfong), as anticipated, cruised in his Incredible Finale leg, five lengths the best in 1:54.3. Fox Valley Jericho (Travis Seekman) was awarded first in the second split when the stewards disqualified the first-place finisher PD’s Diamond Hope (Marcus Miller) to third.

 The Erv Miller stable’s Fox Valley Pepper pulled off a surprise win in the final Incredible Finale division with a strong stretch rally for driver Marus Miller, overtaking Battlin Bob in the late going. The Somestarsomewhere gelding’s maiden win was in 1:53.1