April 5, 2020

By Mike Paradise

Once we get back racing at Hawthorne, last season’s Illinois Two-Year-Old Pacing Filly of the Year Fox Valley Exploit is ready to make her sophomore debut.

As far as the filly’s trainer, driver and co-owner Kyle Husted is concerned, the 28-year-old Illinois native is closing in on his return to driving horses.

Kyle hasn’t taken a horse postward yet this year.

“I tore up my knee pretty good skiing,” explained Kyle. “I tore the ACL, the LCL, the MCL, just about everything. I’ve been spending a lot of time doing physical therapy. With Hawthorne down, the time off has given me a chance to catch up to the other guys (driving).

The unfortunate accident came during the winter after Kyle, with the help of Night of Champions winner Fox Valley Exploit, put up his best numbers of his career in dash winners (I09), money won driving ($1,082,038), training victories (28) and money won as a trainer ($324,921) in 2019.

Fox Valley Exploit did her part to give the 5-5, 150-pound slender Husted a very fruitful 2019 season. The Sportsmaster filly, out of The Big Dog mare She Likes It All, hauled in $93,291 for Husted and co- proprietor David Brigham of Concord, Michigan.

Fox Valley Exploit only raced nine times as a freshman and came up a winner in five of those outings. The filly also had a pair of seconds and one third place finish.

“Fox Valley Exploit is a big filly and I didn’t want to over race her as a 2-year-old,”explained the Altamont, Illinois resident. “I brought her along easy and pointed her for Hawthorne (2-year-old series) and she ended up having a great year for us.

“Her only bad race came at Springfield when the filly made an early break in her elimination. Fox Valley Exploit didn’t handle the shipping down to Springfield very well and she tied up on me. She did come back a week later and won the stake’s consolation and then she won again at Du Quoin. (Director’s Award stake)

“Fox Valley Exploit was an exceptionally big filly for a 2-year-old and has continued to grow. In her last few starts I had to race her in a custom bike that I have for really big horses.

“The filly has filled out over the winter and she’s even bigger now. She’s been in training and she’s good to go once we get the green light to start racing again.”

A full sister to the 2019 ICF Aged Pacing Mare of the Year Allbeastnobeauty (1:50.4), Fox Valley Exploit only missed one check in her first season, her seventh place finish on August 9th at Springfield. The filly then took her season mark of 1:55.3 at the State Fair six days after her mishap.

Fox Valley Exploit’s 1:55.4 win in the NOC’s Incredible Tillie Final was one of three championship drives last year by Husted. Kyle also connected with Louzotic in the three-year-old filly trot’s Beulah Dygert Memorial and later with the pacing mare Skeeter Machine in the Tony Maurello Memorial.

Down to Zero: When the Sacramento, California Health Department this past week suspended racing at Cal-Expo it meant that all harness racing meets in the United States are now halted. . . On Tuesday the Ohio State Racing Commission announced that horse racing at all Ohio racetracks is officially cancelled through April 30.

Starting Wednesday, April 8 Mike Paradise’s stories will be posted every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday while racing at Hawthorne is closed down.

April 4, 2020

By Mike Paradise

Anytime a horseman buys a pacer or trotter it’s a gamble. Sometimes that roll of the dice pays off and of course, sometimes it’s a failure. For trainer Dale Kanitz and his wife Cathy their acquisition last summer of the ICF pacer Susan Page hit the jackpot for the Olney, Illinois couple.

Susan Page had an incredible run the Kanitz stable in 2019. The then six-year-old mare made 17 starts for her new connections and came away with 11 first place finishes, including five in a row last August at Hawthorne.

The Sagebrush mare put an explanation point on her very successful campaign with a victory on the Night of Champions in a $12,000 ICF event and then another with an early November Open Pace triumph at the new Kentucky facility Oak Grove where she bested the likes of the recent March 8th Hawthorne Open winner Dee Rocks.

Susan Page hauled in over $46,000 for the Kanitz’s, about nine times more than she made in any previous year of racing. The mare had only earned a little over $12,000 in her first three seasons.

“Except for a few Hawthorne starts (as a four-year-old) Susan Page raced at the fairs for Darla Martin, who did a great job of getting her to the races,” said Dale. “There was no way the mare was going to make much money racing at the fairs so that’s why she didn’t have a lot of lifetime earnings.

“I had been watching Susan Sage closely at both the fairs and Hawthorne where I’m based during their meetings. I felt there were few things I could try to do to improve her so I offered to buy her from Darla. We got together, settled on a price and after I bought her the horse came on well for us and became a very good racing mare.

“Getting a win with her on the Night of Champions was really a thrill for us,” continued the Tuscola, Illinois native. “I really enjoyed racing her at Oak Grove in Kentucky. It’s a beautiful facility and they’re especially kind to horsemen. If you needed anything all you had to do was ask and it got done.”

Kanitz took Susan Sage back home to Olney this past week.

“I had Susan Page at Hawthorne with me and was training her for her first season start but something wasn’t right about her,” said Dale, who celebrated his 72nd birthday last Thursday. “Eventually she popped a splint, so I took her back home while we wait for Hawthorne to restart. We’re looking forward to racing her in conditioned races and Opens this summer.”

A $3,500 yearling buy at the 2014 Illini Classic, the daughter of the Artsplace mare Mystic Art, missed just one purse check her new owners and took her mark of 1:52.3 in her Night of Champion victory. Besides her 11 wins Susan Sage also had four second place finishes for Kanitz.

Starting Wednesday, April 8 Mike Paradise’s stories will be posted every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday while racing at Hawthorne is closed down.

April 3, 2020

During these extremely difficult times, the IHHA wants to encourage anyone who needs a helping hand, to reach out to us. We understand that horsemen are an incredibly resilient group but we are also aware that we are living through a truly unique situation. If you or your family or your horses are in dire straits and have nowhere to turn to, please don’t hesitate to call the IHHA office at 630-323-0808 and leave a message on how we can contact you. We will keep this as confidential as possible. You can also reach out to Clark Fairley at 217-276-1118, Angie Coleman at 312-287-4613, Hosea Williams at 312- 909-5043, John Zawistowski at 815-530-3465, Craig Grummel at 618-541-1205, Steve Searle at 815-685-0249, Merv Chupp at 708-205-3670 or any other IHHA director that you may know. Be smart and be safe.

April 3, 2020

The IHHA understands that during these trying times everyone is seeking answers to what the future holds. We wish we could be more specific in our announcements but unfortunately so much information is unclear and changing every hour. What we do know is that racing has been shut down by order of the Governor’s office. We are hoping to return to racing on May 1^st but right now that is simply a target date and not written in stone. Is there a chance we can get back to racing sooner than that? Possibly, but unlikely. Is there a chance we could be shut down further? It is possible but just like so many other citizens of Illinois, we just don’t know. We are keenly aware of how difficult this situation is for everyone and we will work to get back to racing as soon as it is safe enough to do so but the final decision is ultimately not ours.

Click on the link below to read some developments on new programs and packages that have evolved since the Covid-19 pandemic. Covid-19 Links

April 3, 2020

By Mike Paradise

The end of the last century and the beginning of this one were the “Glory Days” of the now non-operational Balmoral Park, especially when it came to the Crete, Illinois racetrack’s Super Night.

Handed the baton on the Illinois Standardbred’s most prestigious evening of racing, by far, from the now defunct Sportsman’s Park, the far south suburban facility put up some remarkable mutuel handle numbers on its mid-September showcase programs.

From 2000 through 2007 Balmoral’s Super Night handle astonishingly averaged over $2.5 million, topped by Super Night 2000 that hauled in $2,817, 966, the state’s all-time high for a single harness racing program.

On September 16 of 2000 we saw 10,769 patrons squeeze into Balmoral’s Grandstand, Clubhouse and the track’s apron to watch the crème de crème of the turn of the century’s ICF pacers and trotters duke it out in 14 races for over $1.5 million in purse money.

The Balmoral driver colony in 2000 was headed-up by Andy Miller (the meet’s leading driver), Tony Morgan, Dale Hiteman, Eric Ledford, Brent Holland, Dave Magee, Sam Widger and Ryan Anderson.

Gerald Hansen was the meet’s leading trainer that year, closely followed by Joe Anderson. Other conditioner’s with more than 30 winners that summer were Catrina Rucker, Ryan Dailey, Ryan Anderson, Erv Miller, Homer Hochstetler, Brian Pinske, Jim Eaton, Roger Davino, Joel Smith and Bob Phillips.

There are a number of championships that stick out on Super Night 2000 with the eventual Illinois Hall of Fame trotter Plesac’s winning performance my most memorable.

Driven by Jim Curran for trainer John Butenschoen Plesac was, to say the least, dominant in the $112,000 Su Mac Lad Final, winning by an amazing 19 and 1/2 lengths for St. Charles, Illinois owner Richard Balog. The Armbro Charger trotter would go on to establish an Illinois bred Standardbred record $2.5 million in career purse earnings.

Cyber Wave, owned by her trainer Stan Millar, needed a victory in the $280,000 Orange & Blue Filly Championship to clinch her share of the Illinois Department of Agriculture’s $1 million incentive bonus, and the Fighting Major filly delivered in a big way with driver Sam Widger.

Cyber Wave and Sammy were by themselves at the finish of the 1:52.3 mile, some nine-plus lengths ahead of any of her freshman foes.

While a good portion of the record crowd was on their way home, or maybe already in bed, when the $320,000 Orange & Blue Colt Final rolled around after midnight, it was worth the wait for those of us who were still there.

The Joe Anderson Stable’s Rattle And Rock required a triumph to keep the two-year-old pacer’s hopes alive for a share of the state’s $1 million bonus and the pressure was on driver Ryan Anderson to get the job done despite the 10-hole.

Parked-out the entire first half (55.4) through fractions of 27.3 and 28.1, Rattle And Rock eventually made the front with Ryan and Sportsmaster gelding dug in to eke out a neck victory (1:53.2) over co-favorite Big Green Machine for trainer Joe Anderson and owners John Leahy, John Koliopoulos and Anderson Racing Inc.

About a month later Rattle And Rock proved best in the $67,500 Cardinal at Maywood Park with his then 20-year-old driver and nailed down his share of the state’s $1 million bonus.

Other Super Night 2000 champions were the Erv Miller trained Apple Of My Eye (Eric Ledford) in the 3-year-old Grandma Ann; the Mark Fransen Stable’s Andy’s Golden Boy (Tony Morgan) in the Pete Langley Memorial for sophomore colts and geldings; Pause To Admire (Brent Holland) for trainer Tom Stamper in the Dan Patch colt pace; Rain Dance Kim (Dave Magee), from the barn of trainer Lloyd Daulton, in the Ann Vonian filly and mare pace, and the John Nessa filly trotter Silent Wings (Doug Hamilton) in the Lady Ann Reed showdown.

Starting next week (April 8) Mike Paradise’s new stories will be posted every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday while racing at Hawthorne is closed down.

March 29, 2020

By Mike Paradise

Some horses are putting together successful careers on the race track and doing so without the attention they deserve. One such pacer is the Wilfong family homebred Boogie On Down.

Only five outings into her six-year-old season, Boogie On Down has deposited over $180,000 on career card, mostly the hard-way, only once winning an event with a five-digit reward for her Indiana owners Lynn and Barbara Wilfong (Kentland) and Brett and Candice Wilfong (Pendleton).

“She may not always be the best mare on the track but she always tries hard, makes money, and wins her share of races,’ said her driver Kyle Wilfong).

Boogie On Down was victorious in the Springfield championship as a three and four-year-old. She won a couple of Hawthorne Opens last year and also proved best in the most recent distaff Open raced this season at Hawthorne.

“Every season she’s been up and down the conditioned ladder and when she gets a good trip in the Opens or the favorites make mistakes, she’s right there,” said Kyle.

“Boogie On Down has been first, second or third in 51 per cent of her lifetime races and that is something very hard to do,” added the younger Wilfong. “That’s especially tough when you consider the type of horses year in and year out that she faces.”

In the mare’s 95 lifetime trips postward the ICF pacer has chalked up 17 wins, to go along with 16 seconds and 16 thirds

The Skydancer Hanover mare brought in a modest $18,127 in her freshman campaign and then followed with $64,542 in earnings as a three-year-old, another $42,000-plus at four and additional over $41,000 more last year when she took her mark of 1:51.4 at Springfield. Boogie On Down already is a three-time winner at the current Hawthorne meet, adding another $13,720 to her money winning total.

“Not many people are aware that Boogie On Down’s grandmother Before Sunrise is a former (1996) Breeders Crown champion,” said her trainer Brett Wilfong.

Boogie On Down’s mother Be A Good Girl is by Four Starzzz Shark (1:47.4, $2.5 million. Skydancer Hanover is by Western Hanover (1:50.4, $2.5 million).

Skydancer Hanover has been a terrific stallion for the Wilfong’s. Some of his productive sons and daughters of Skydancer Hanover include Colorful Sky (1:49.3), Crankin’ It Up (1:50.4), Lovethewayoulook (1:51.1), It’s Time For Fun (1:51.3), C B Eye (1:51.4) and Lovedancinwithyou (1:52.3).

Boogie On Down paid an even $37 when she won the filly and mare Open on. That generous mutuel shouldn’t be a much of a surprise since the ICF mare doesn’t get a lot of respect from the betting public.

The mare is 3-for-5 in 2020, and she wasn’t the betting favorite in any of those starts. In fact, last year Boogie On Down made 15 trips to the gate at Hawthorne and went off as the people’s choice just once, a fourth place finish last May 1st.

Boogie On Down was the even-money choice in her Springfield championship last summer. On the other hand she didn’t get much play in any of her eight races at Hoosier Park, usually going off as a longshot.

March 28, 2020

By Mike Paradise

With Illinois Governor’s J R Pritzer’s stay-a-home order issued aimed to curtail the spread of the Coronavirus in effect, like most everybody else I have plenty of time on my hands, so I decided to do some research since it was exactly 50 years ago in mid-April that Hawthorne got its first opportunity to race Standardbreds.

The year was 1970 and, needless to say, it was quite a different racing industry when Suburban Downs at Hawthorne opened its doors for a six-week meeting that ran from April 14 through May 22 under the guidance of General Manager Robert F. Carey, Secretary-Treasurer Beulah Dygert and Racing Secretary Bob Larry.

Back in 1970 there were no less than six Chicago area tracks with Standardbred race meetings. It was a time when pari-mutuel harness racing was prohibited in Cook County after the first week in December through late February.

In 1970 half-mile track racing was conducted an old Aurora Downs (Kane County) and at Balmoral Park (Will County) the first eight weeks of the year. Sportsman’s Park, at that time a five-eighths oval, took over from Feb. 23 through April 13, and then Suburban Downs at Hawthorne got its first chance.

The circuit went back to Sportsman’s from May 23 through July 20. Old Washington Park took over and raced through October 10. Maywood Park grabbed the baton and ended the Cook County racing season December 7. Then it was back to Aurora Downs and Balmoral Park.

The first harness meeting at Hawthorne was a huge success. The nightly handle averaged over seven figures at $1,009,777, with the best night on May 16 when $1,302,503 went through the track’s mutuel machines.

Remember back then there wasn’t any type of off-track wagering facilities anywhere in the country. No simulcasting, no computers or mobile devices. If you wanted to watch and bet on the races, you had to be at the racetrack. The 1970 nightly attendance at Hawthorne averaged a robust 11,686.

Hawthorne’s first leading driver was Hall of Famer Bob Farrington, who also won the dash titles that year at Sportsman’s and Washington Parks, Other notable drivers who competed during Hawthorne’s inaugural meeting included Jim Dennis, Joe Marsh, Jr, Don and Daryl Busse, Bruce Nickells, Delbert Insko, Walter Paisley, Aubrey Petty, Dwayne Pletcher, Gene Riegle, Jack Williams and the Willis brothers, Connel, Jesse and Nelson.

While today we have light-weight composite racing bikes, 37 years ago they were heavy wooden sulkies. The fastest mile at Hawthorne was 1:59.2 by the pacer Robert E Adios. The quickest by a trotter was 2:00.4 by Dayan, who went on to be named the Four-Year-Old Trotter of the Year.

Elsewhere on the Chicago sports scene at that time, the Cubs followed their infamous 1969 season with a second place finish, The White Sox hit rock bottom in 1970 with their worse record ever: 56 wins and 106 losses. The Bulls in their fourth season ended up 39-43.

As for our Bears, they had a pathetic 1-13 record in 1969 while playing at Wrigley Field and it got worse. In early 1970 they lost the coin flip for the No. 1 pick of the entire NFL draft to the Pittsburgh Steelers who took a quarterback named Terry Bradshaw. The Bears then turned around and traded the No. 2 pick of the draft to the Green Bay Packers for three veteran players, none of which lasted more than two years with their club.

Some other interesting notes from the entertainment world that year saw the breakup of The Beatles . . . Rock and Roll stars Jimmy Hendricks and Janis Joplin both losing their lives from drug-related deaths at age 27. . . Monday Night Football debuting on ABC . . . George C Scott won the Oscar for his performance in the blockbuster movie Patton but refused the gold statuette.

There were approximately 125 million less people in living the United States . . . the average annual salary was about $7,800 a year. . . the federal minimium wage was $2.50 an hour. . . the federal debt was only at $450 billion. . . the Dow dropped to 631 points. . .You could buy a brand new top-of-the-line Ford automobile for $3,176 . . . a loaf of bread sold for 25 cents . . . a gallon of gas was 36 cents . . . the cost of a first-class stamp was just 6 cents.

The year of 1970 had its share of absurd news as well.
For example a state commission in Mississippi voted to ban Sesame Street because of its “highly integrated cast of children” . . . United Airlines had “Men-Only” flights that featured free cigars and steak dinners served by stewardesses, the only women allowed on the planes.

In the “How Wrong Can You Be Department” the U.S. Surgeon General in 1970 declared: “It’s time to close the book on infectious diseases. Eleven years later AIDS was clinically detected for the first time and now our current Coronavirus outbreak is the third world-wide Pandemic since the turn of this century.

March 27, 2020

Billy Johnston, 84, dies

 

March 27, 2020

Click below for more.

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March 27, 2020

By Mike Paradise

By all the data the trotter Fox Valley Quest had a terrific first season for the Tom Simmons Stable, capped off with the prestigious honor as the ICF 2019 Two-Year-Old Trotter of the Year.

However there was one large blemish on the brilliant freshman’s record of the Piazzazzed gelding out of the Vaporize broodmare Fox Valley Strata . . . his very disappointing outing on last year’s Night of Champions.

Fox Valley Quest went off stride in the first turn of the $108,000 Kadabra championship, the biggest prize of his division, and finished up the track as the prohibitive 2 to 5 odds with his regular driver Casey Leonard.

The young trotter came into last September’s rainy Night of Champions evening with nine victories in 11 starts that included the Cardinal (Hawthorne) and the Darn Safe (Du Quoin) titles. Fox Valley Quest’s only two losses had been second place finishes in a leg of the Kadabra to Desert Sheik and to On Higher Ground, both Mike Brink trained trotters.

Fox Valley Quest’s break on the Night of Champions came a little past the midway point of the first turn with a trotter inside of him and another on his outside. It was obvious the Simmons trained trotter was in tight quarters.

What the pan camera view of the race doesn’t show us is if the public’s choice was squeezed some before his costly miscue. A rain-soaked racetrack and less than good visibility didn’t help matters.

Fox Valley Quest would finish 2019 with 10 wins in 13 starts and $76,758 in purse earnings for Illinois owners Carl Lacey (Athens) and Benita Simmons (Springfield). However only $2,160 of that bankroll came from starting in the Kadabra showdown, far, far less than the winner Crooked Creek who came away with first place prize money of $49,680

But as they say, you can’t change history.

Fox Valley Quest is in training for his sophomore debut and another shot at a Night of Champions crown. The first leg of the Erwin F. Dygert ICF three-year-old stake series is scheduled for Sunday, May 24th, the same night the Beulah Dygert for fillies gets under way.

The opening leg of the Robert F. Carey for second season state-bred colt and gelding pacers is Friday, May 22nd. The Plum Peachy for the sophomore pacing gals is a night later.