By: Jerry Connors, Jr. 
WILKES-BARRE PA – Favored Take Your Pick picked to race on the front end, then held off a game challenge from Kiss My Cheek to win the $17,000 featured pace for mares in 1:53.3 on a warmer Monday afternoon at Pocono Downs at Mohegan Pennsylvania.
 
Bee Okay A strung out the winning daughter of JK Endofanera past a :27.1 quarter, then yielded, and George Napolitano Jr. (who had five winners on the 15-race card, all within the last eight races) was able to give the chalk a breather to a :56.3 half. The third quarter saw the tempo pick up with a tailwind, and Bee Okay A making a break midstretch, allowing the third place-sitting Kiss My Cheek to circle to the pocket before a 1:24.3 three-quarters, then move out in the stretch to challenge. The race came down to these two, with Take Your Pick battling hard to defeat her rival by a neck for trainer Jeff Cullipher and Pollack Racing LLC as she won for the third time in her last four starts.
 
The Chapter Seven gelding Chapolier became the first horse to become a double winner at the meet in triumphing for driver Simon Allard, trainer Mark Akins, and A 1 Racing. This victory came in 1:55.3, showing the vastly-better racing situation awaiting Chapolier than when he won in 2:02 in harsh weather conditions; the veteran was also claimed out of this $16,000 contest for a $25,000 price. Pacer Laurie Lee later became the first of her gait to win twice in 2025 at The Downs.
 
A $15,000 contest for claiming handicap trotters saw the Whom Shall I Fear gelding Kaboomski make a pace-controlling move going under the wire the first time and then striding off to a convincing victory in 1:58.1. Tyler Buter had the sulky duties for trainer Kevin Reynolds Jr., co-owner with Kevin Reynolds.
 
A conditioned group of trotters raced for $15,000, and driver Tyler Buter won this event as well with Waverly Hanover, a daughter of Swan For All who scored in 1:57.3. Waverly Hanover sat in the pocket behind frontstepping Craft Made, then caught that rival late to earn the half-length victory for trainer/owner Todd Buter.
 
Pocono will go to a Saturday-Monday-Tuesday schedule starting in March, with racing on each card starting at 1 p.m. Saturday’s program has a fast-class pace for $25,000, with Brue Hanover and Spring Inhis Step A, 1-2 last week, being joined by the double millionaire Charlie May. There will also be seven $17,000 divisions of the second preliminary of the Game Of Claims Series, with the entrants valued this week at $27,500; the fifth race looks the toughest as it matches three first-round winners, including Genius Man, the only first-round winner who was claimed out of his GOC contest.
 
Drivers wearing some basic shade of red and white have won 27 of the first 43 races at the meet: Jason Bartlett and George Napolitano Jr. (9 each), Ridge Warren (4), Matt Kakaley (3), and Anthony Napolitano (2) … Free Pocono program pages are or will be available at www.phha.org.

By: Jerry Connors, Jr. 
WILKES-BARRE PA – Todd Schadel, the leader in UDR and UTR in North America last year in the 300-499 starts category, notched another milestone Monday as Pocono Downs at Mohegan Pennsylvania got its 2025 season underway after a Saturday cancellation, scoring his 2000th sulky success as his Internationalcraze won the featured trot in 2:00.3.
 
Over a “good” track on a bitterly cold day with a strong stretch headwind, causing the variant to go from “+1” to “+2” to “+3” in time for the day’s two feature races, Schadel and the winning International Moni four-year-old gelding were not to be denied, moving before the :30 quarter and passing the next poles in 1:00.3 and 1:30.2 en route to a three-length victory in the $15,000 contest. Internationalcraze, who was the first 2:00 trotter in Butler Fair history this past summer after going exactly 2:00, is co-owned by trainer/driver Schadel and his wife Christine along with Rick and Regina Beinhauer.
 
Top purse of the day was the $17,000 bounty offered for developing distaff pacers, and the well-traveled Sweet Lou mare Louisville GB regained her winning ways with a 1:57.3 victory. Louisville GB, who had won her four previous starts before a hard-luck fourth last time, was four-wide early, then set into high gear past a :28.3 to make the lead and put up middle splits of :58.3 and 1:27.3 en route to a 2¼ length victory. The Robert Cleary trainee, owned by Kenneth Jacobs, was guided by Tyler Buter, who tied with George Napolitano Jr. for opening day honors with three driving triumphs.
 
Pocono has racing scheduled for this Saturday and Monday, the 22nd and 24th, at 1 p.m. The Saturday card will find the Game Of Claims Series for pacers valued at $25,000 race the first of their three preliminaries, eight divisions strong, after losing the original initial leg to the cancellation this past Saturday; these horses will race three $17,000 preliminaries, trying to earn their way into the $35,000 Championship, now slated for Saturday, March 15. There will also be a $25,000 fast-class pacing feature on the Saturday card. Free Pocono program pages are or will be available at www.phha.org.