2YO race at Bloomsburg PA Fair

BLOOMSBURG PA – If you ask the Pennsylvania fair harness racing horsemen's community to consider an old adage, they would definitely say that the glass is half-full.

 

For the second straight week, the PA fair circuit was reduced from two scheduled days to one because of rain. Last week at Wattsburg, the three-year-olds got to race Sunday; this past weekend, the two-year-old set got their first action on Saturday at Bloomsburg, the speedy northeast Pennsylvania half-miler.

 

The star of the Saturday action had to be Billy's Falcon, a Nuclear Breeze gelding out of B T Falcon, and whose granddam produced two Sire Stakes champions – so he had the pedigree. In his corner is breeder / owner/ trainer / driver Roger Hammer – "the King of the PA Fairs."

 

And he has the speed – he won in 2:00.1 over a fair track rated "good," in his second career start, with back fractions of 58 – 28.4. The other 2PC winners went good miles (McClassic in 2:04.3 – 28.4, Crazy Idea home in 30.2 in a 2:07 outing), but Billy's Falcon and Hammer certainly stamped themselves as the early horse to keep an eye on.

 

Fastest 2PF winner was Unbeamlieveable (a Moon Beam filly backed by driver Chris Shaw, trainer Jason Shaw, 3YO owner Mason Shaw), stopping the clock in 2:04 – 28.3. On the trot, speed honors went to the filly She's Seaworthy (Cantab Hall), a 2:07.3 winner for trainer/driver Steve Schoeffel and owners Virginia and Kathy Schoeffel, James Nelson, and the BPN Partnership; fastest colt was another trainer-driver Hammerite, the Yankee Glide gelding Keystone Shotgun, home in 2:08 for the ownership team of Hammer and Todd Schadel, the partnership behind Vivid Photo, the Hambletonian winner ten years ago.

 

In all, Hammer had an owning / training / driving triple; horsemen doublers were trainer/driver Schoeffel, driver Shaw and trainer Shaw, and driver Shawn Johnston.

 

The circuit heads back west this weekend to the Meadville Sertoma event at the Crawford County fairgrounds, where legendary "host" Boots Dunn will do his best to give his fellow horsemen a "full glass of action."