Dover Downs Extra 3/3/17

Delaware harness racing horsemen came up big at the U.S. Harness Writers Association (USHWA) Night of Champions honoring the 2016 Dan Patch Award winners on Sunday, Feb. 26, at Planet Hollywood, Las Vegas, Nevada.

Always B Miki, bred and co-owned by Wilmington, Del. attorney Joe Hurley's Roll The Dice Stable won 2016 Horse of the Year honors and George Teague was a two-time winner.

Team Teague won the coveted Stan Bergstein Proximity Award, the second highest honor presented by the U.S. Harness Writers Association (USHWA), and for the second time Teague was named USHWA's Good Guy Award winner.

Teague also received the Harness Horsemen International (HHI) top award, "The Dominic Frinzi Person of the Year." for his support of the sport by graciously allowing the public to meet and greet his great pacer, 2015 Horse of the Year, Wiggle It Jiggleit.

On many occasions during 2016, Teague went all out to help promote harness racing at major events.

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On Wednesday (3/1/17) the 2012 Hambletonian winner Market Share raced at Dover Downs. The trotter made the winner's circle for the first time in 2017 as regular driver Tim Tetrick piloted a 1:54.1 victory in the sub-feature trot. The victory was the 29th in his career lifting his bankroll to $3,756,576. He's back on Tuesday in the feature.

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Dover Downs horseman Ken Wood recently returned from his latest on-going personal crusade commuting to West Africa to provide water to the natives of the nations of Ghana and Tanzania. Wood's acclaimed humanitarian effort, 'Wells For Ghana' drills to provides water to needy inhabitants who previously had to walk five miles to find water that was deemed unsafe. Wood usually makes a three-week round trip. Wood reports he has totaled more than 1,500 wells in Ghana and another 500 in Tanzania. The wells serve more than 2-million native West Africans who until now never had fresh water.

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Defending champion Corey Callahan is back on top of the Leading Driver statistics. Vic Kirby, who previously led the standings from opening day, is still a strong second .Callahan has a 122-120 win lead over Kirby. Yannick Gingras is third with 104 wins Tony Morgan is in fourth place with 91 wins. Ross Wolfenden has moved into fifth place with 68 winners.

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The leading trainer stats are now a big battle. Defending champion Dylan Davis has overtaken previous leader Jim King. Davis has a one-win lead, 57 to 56, Leigh Raymen is in third place, with 36 wins. Joe Hundertpfund, fourth, at 33 with Josh Green now fifth with 27 winners.

Marv Bachrad