Illinois Harness
Horsemen's Association
Illinois Harness
Horsemen's Association
Mike Paradise
Recent Stories
The old saying “You Get What You Pay For” doesn’t apply to the distaff pacer Thebeautifulthings who was recently honored as the 2024 Illinois 2-Year-Old Filly Pacer of the Year.
Back in 2013 Dr. Richard Flacco took a risk and acquired the trotting sire Lou’s Legacy and brought the stud to Flacco Family Farms in Alexis, Illinois.
Whatever the endeavor, a three-peat is certainly quite an achievement. Last weekend trainer Curt Grummel was at the annual Illinois Standardbred Banquet in Springfield, IL to accept the award for star distaffer Whiskey Lou honored as the 2024 ICF Filly Trotter of the Year.
Decisions. We make them all the time. Sometimes it’s a major decision that could impact our lives in a big way. Much more often they’re not and have little importance on future happens.
Hawthorne Racecourse brings down the curtain on its winter harness racing meet with an earlier 6:30 pm first post Sunday night but not before a trio of Pop-Series finals are decided, including the filly and mare pacing showdown where the very likely betting favorite has been picture-perfect for the month of February.
At long last the Open trot has returned to Hawthorne. It’s been more than a month since the top overnight event for trotting horses has embellished the Illinois Standardbred circuit and it comes with one more weekend to go before the curtains comes down on the Chicago area racetrack, as far as harness racing is concerned.
Perry Smith’s Round Here Buzz, fresh off ending the stranglehold of Hawthorne’s Open event for the last two months by Australian bred pacers, faces a new Down Under threat Saturday evening.
The Open Pace returns to Hawthorne on Sunday afternoon after a two-week hiatus due to an insufficient number of entries. That wasn’t the case this time around has nine horses, five of them Australian breds, were submitted for the sixth race feature.
Hawthorne’s harness racing meeting is entering its homestretch with only a trio of weekends left. Its race office has decided to wrap the session with an additional pop-up series that concludes on the track’s closing night.
Often the road to a successful showing in a major race isn’t a smooth one and you can add the name of Fox Valley Tessa, the 2023 Plum Peachy champion to that list. In fact, it was nip and tuck that the 3-year-old ICF filly would even make Hawthorne’s Night of Champions Final.
When a horse dominates a division like Whiskey Lou did in the 2023 ICF trotting filly class when she won 13 of 14 starts, including the Beulah Dygert final on Hawthorne’s Night of Champions, often overlooked is what any of her rivals did.
Hawthorne Open Pace returns Sunday night but with an unusual look. It’s a six-horse field and only one horse in it was not bred in Australia and competed on the other side of the globe before coming to the United States.