Chester PA — A week from this coming Sunday (May 26), Harrah’s Philadelphia will be holding its annual Super Sunday, with three $100,000 Invitationals (pace, trot, mare pace), a $50,000 Invitational, and a preliminary round of the Pennsylvania Sire Stakes for 3-year-old pacing colts.
This Sunday’s card has no such big-money races on the schedule, but it does contain three horses of national interest — two of which may be racing seven days afterwards.
Ruthless Hanover, who last season paced the fastest mile ever on a five-eighths-mile track, 1:46.3, here, makes his seasonal debut in the fast-class pace. Now seven, the altered son of Somebeachsomewhere, trained by Tom Cancelliere and owned by his brother John, has made only 54 career starts, but he’s made the most of his 22 victories, including his win in the Auger Memorial on Super Sunday 2023. In that race he laid down supersonic splits of :25.2, :53, and 1:19.2 en route to his world record clocking.
Ruthless Hanover has had two qualifiers to prep for his 2024 bow, in the latter missing a half-length to Abuckabett Hanover in 1:50.4 at The Meadowlands.
Andrew McCarthy has been tapped for the fifth race driving assignment behind Ruthless Hanover.
A race later, the star distaff Twin B Joe Fresh, winner of $1,440,203 at two and three while battling the great Sylvia Hanover, makes her first start of the year against a field of fellow 4-year-olds, her opposition being all males.
Twin B Joe Fresh is well-remembered by eastern Pennsylvania fans for her memorable clash with Sylvia Hanover in last year’s Lynch Memorial at Pocono, where the pair dueled through a :26.1 third quarter before Sylvia Hanover lapsed from stride, with Twin B Joe Fresh taking full advantage.
Twin B Joe Fresh, who has a mark of 1:48.2, comes to this race off a pair of qualifiers at The Meadowlands, the latter a win in 1:51.2-:26. She also has drawn post four, with Dexter Dunn to be in the bike for trainer Chris Ryder; those two are also co-owners with Peter Trebotica and Barry Spak.
Sunday’s first race features the horse who recorded the fastest mile of the local season, 1:49.1. That would be Total Stranger who accomplished the feat while breaking his maiden.
A son of Bettor’s Delight and a full brother to 2020 Horse of the Year Tall Dark Stranger, Total Stranger, good but not a winner at two, came out of the box roaring for trainer Nancy Takter and the partnership of Judith Taylor, Caviart Farms, and Chuck Pompey. Like the two other horses featured in this release, he’ll start from post four, with the meet’s leading driver, Tim Tetrick, to be piloting him.
Ruthless Hanover might defend his Auger title on the 26th, and Twin B Joe Fresh, who beat older mares in the Fan Duel last year, might be in the Betsy Ross mare pace, but Total Stranger is Ontario-sired, and thus cannot be in the Pennsylvania Sire Stakes on Super Sunday.
Sunday post times at Philly are 12:40 p.m.; free programs are available at www.phha.org.
