CHESTER PA – Sons of Captaintreacherous won five of the six $20,000 third round preliminaries of the Pennsylvania Stallion Series for three-year-old pacing colts Monday afternoon at Harrah’s Philadelphia, but it was the Somebeachsomewhere gelding Prince Of Tides who posted the fastest time, 1:50, which also rewrote the North American season’s record for his division.
Eric Carlson, who tasted sulky success four times on the matinee card, moved the winner to the lead in front of the stands, and the sophomore came home powerfully, last half in :54.1 despite bearing out in the stretch to be 6¼ lengths clear of favored Skip To My Lou, the only StS horses to win in both the preliminary legs before today. Prince Of Tides, who dropped down from the Sire Stakes to post the impressive triumph, is trained by Ross Croghan for Let It Ride Stables, Mr. Dana Parham, and Howard Taylor.
Carlson had another Stallion Series winner, this one part of a StS training triple for Tony Alagna, Odds On Boca Raton, who is now perfect in two Stallion Series starts after a 1:52.1 victory. Odds On Boca Raton went right to the top and discouraged all other challengers, finishing a length to the good of Stienams Beach for Odds On Racing.
The other win for Team Dunn/Alagna was produced by Waterway, who took his second start of the year after a third in his yearly bow. Dunn moved Waterway to the lead in front of the grandstand and had smooth sailing from there, withstanding Champagneonthebeach by ¾ of a length in 1:52.1 for Alagna And Begley Stable, Santo and Joseph Barbera, and David Silverman.
The final two Stallion winners both took new marks; one was Latissiumus Hanover, who took his fifth straight win, all in Stallion Series action, while lowering his mark to 1:50.3 in this third round prelim. No, that is not a typo – Latissimus Hanover had swept his four prelims in 2018 and would have been the likely choice for the 2YO Championship, but his season ended after the quartet of wins, and this was his first start since August 13 of last year. But the colt looked muscled up and fit to go, taking the lead early and maintaining it by 1¾ lengths over Captain Mckee for driver Mark MacDonald and trainer Ray Schnittker, who co-owns the talented youngster with Ted Gewertz and Mary Arnold Kinsey.
The smallest margin of victory came in the race with the only off-the-pace winner, as Revelry swung wide from third-in coming into the lane and just caught Seafarer by a nose in 1:51.1. George Napolitano Jr. guided the winning gelding for the Cancelliere brothers – trainer Tom and owner John.