Brooklyn Bridge A (Kyle Wilfong) will try to follow his winning U, S. debut with a victory in Hawthorne’s Open Pace on Saturday. (Four Footed Fotos).

By Mike Paradise for the IHHA

  About a month ago we wrote of the trend in Hawthorne’s Open Pace division of seemingly a different pacer each week winning the top Overdue event. After a ninth different horse in the last 10 weekend events has now prevailed, the fete can no longer be called just a “trend.” It’s reality.

 Perry Smith’s 6-year-old gelding Play Me Rock, nicely handled by driver Juan Franco, became the latest pacer to nail down his first Hawthrone Open triumph of the winter meet and he did it a week ago with a three-length margin in 1:51 flat.

 Can Play Me Rock be the first to prevail in back-to-back Hawthorne winter Opens? With the 9-slot in tonight’s 10-horse race feature, he’ll likely be a longshot to pull off the honor, but if not, who will? And will he be the tenth different pacer?

 Six of the 10 horses going to the gate in Saturday’s headliner haven’t succeeded in the meet’s Open, so the odds are we may have another a 10th different winner from the field, listed in post-position order, of Truffle Dog (Mike Oosting), Intimidation (Todd Warren), Fox Valley Landen (Kyle Husted), Melton Beach N (Kyle Wilfong), Montana Chief A (Wyatt Avenatti), Brooklyn Bridge A (Kyle Wilfong), Fox Valley Langley (Geremy Bobbitt), Fox Valley Gemini (Casey Leonard), Play Me Rock (Juan Franco) and Bet Mine (Wyatt Avenatti).

 Perhaps this time around it’ll be one of three pacers born and raised in another country on the other side of the worlfd Two of the strong Down Under imports are the New Zealand bred Melton Beach N and the Australia import Brooklyn Bridge A, are both from the barn of veteran trainer Ronnie Roberts, and expect them to get plenty of public support at the betting windows.

 Melton Beach was shuffled out of contention last week before shaking loose in 27.2 on a chilly night (22 degrees) while stablemate Brooklyn Bridge was very impressive in his United States debut and don’t let the winning time of 1:54.1 fool you. Leaving from the outside nine-post, the 6-year-old gelding was sixth at the first quarter, almost seven lengths behind, and in one swoop move went to first at the 56.2 half. From there, the horse basically just coasted to his victory.

 Both imports are owned by the Castaldo Racing Stable of Addison, Illinois. Another Australian bred in the Open is Montana Chief A (Wyatt Avenatti) from the stable of Hector Herrera. The 9-year-ild geldings boasts 31 career wins.

  Brooklyn Bridge burst on the Australia harness racing scene in 2022 and was called “one of the best horses in the state” by the website Harnesslink as a 4-year-old when he easily captured the $100,000 NSW Regional Championship at Riverina Raceway in Wagga, Australia.

 The son of Sweet Lou raced four wide and then three wide through the first turn before grabbing the lead and controlling the race with driver Blake Jones for owner Ray Moore. Brooklyn Bridge drew away so much in the stretch his driver had time to turn his head around to see where the opposition was.

 The huge victory came in just the horse’s tenth career start, and at that time it was was Brooklyn Bridge’s seventh victory.

 Interestingly, Moore owned a mare named Daisey Chain. So, when a full sister to Daisey Chain in Loving You, an Art Major mare, was offered to him for $15,000, Ray bought her. The mare was in foal to Sweet Lou when he took possession and in October of 2018, she foaled a colt to be later named Brooklyn Bridge.

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