HARVEY’S LAKE PA – On Thursday, rain swept through northeast Pennsylvania and forced the cancellation of the two-year-old Pennsylvania Fair Sire Stakes at the Silver Springs Ranch, about a half-hour away from Pocono.
On Friday, Todd Schadel swept through Silver Springs Ranch – and proceeded to have a hand in every one of the eight winners in the three-year-old Fair Sire Stakes contests:
--He drove six of the eight winners; his 19-year-old son Cody, who recently scored his first pari-mutuel driving victory, handled the other two;
--He trained seven of the winners, and drove the eighth winner for trainer Julie Miller;
--He is the part-owner of six of the winners; his wife Christine topped him here, as she owned a part of seven of the winners.
In the very next race, Todd guided the Bar Hopping ridgling Top Me Off, whose 1:58.3 trot tally not only lowered the previous SSR mark of 2:01 set by Touch Of Dough, but also came within 2/5 of a second of the fastest trotting mile ever at a Pennsylvania fair, the 1:58.1 set by Manhattanup No Ice last year at Bloomsburg. Top Me Off, one of two 2020 PA Fair Championship winners winning for Team Schadel on the day (the other was pacing colt Terry A Hanover, a 1:58.1 winner), is owned by Todd and Christine in partnership with Rick and Regina Beinhauer.
Schadel is down-to-earth enough to realize that he had favorable circumstances in his record day – most of the top “western” three-year-olds had raced at Butler on Wednesday. But he’s also a good enough horsemen to produce so many dominating forces as the fair season takes its initial steps away from the 2021 gate.
Next stop on the PA fair circuit is back west at Stoneboro for a two-day event, which will be drawn on Thursday the 8th and raced on Saturday the 10th and Sunday the 11th, with post time at 2 p.m. both days.