The restricted Pennsylvania-bred stakes series moves to Penn National on Friday, August 14th for the Crowd Pleaser Stakes and the Marshall Jenney Handicap, both on the turf. Also on the card is the $150,000 PA Governor’s Cup for three-year olds and up going one mile and a sixteenth on the turf.
Credit PHBA
Named after the accomplished turf runner, Crowd Pleaser, the $75,000 Crowd Pleaser Stakes is for three-year old registered PA-breds going one mile and a sixteenth on the turf, and this year’s race received eleven nominations.
Crowd Pleaser, born in 1995 and bred by Eclipse Award winning breeder, sportsman, and philanthropist, George Strawbridge, Jr. and trained by the late Hall of Famer, Jonathan Sheppard, raced from 1997 to 2000. The graded stakes winner retired with career earnings of $605,150 and entered stud duty at Northview Stallion Station in Maryland.
A homebred for George Strawbridge, Jr. and his Augustin Stable, the regally-bred Crowd Pleaser was by A.P. Indy out of the Grade 1 winning mare, Creaking Board (GB). Crowd Pleaser made his first start on the dirt at Delaware Park where he finished seventh. He won his second start on the dirt in a maiden special at Delaware, and then graduated to stakes competition. In his third start, and only race in Pennsylvania, Crowd Pleaser won his first stake, the Valley Forge Stakes at Philadelphia Park.
As a three-year old, Crowd Pleaser won four races in a row. He won an allowance race at Saratoga, he won the Grade 3 Saranac Handicap at Saratoga, he won the Virginia Derby at Colonial Downs in record time for the mile and a quarter, and he won the Calder Derby at Calder, all on the turf. At age five, and in the last race of his career, Crowd Pleaser won the Sycamore Stakes on the turf at Keeneland.
He retired to stud duty with a record of twenty-four starts, nine wins, one second, and three thirds. He stood at Northview Stallion Station and achieved an impressive record of twenty-seven winners from fifty starters, but his stallion career ended suddenly at age eleven when he was found dead in his paddock. He died from acute cardiovascular collapse.
Credit PHBA
The $75,000 Marshall Jenney Handicap is for registered PA-breds, three-years old and up going five furlongs on the turf. This year’s race received twenty-one nominations.
Marshall Jenney’s legacy as an exceptional breeder and horseman lives on though his life was cut short at age sixty. He developed his farm, Derry Meeting Farm, near Cochranville, PA, into a premier thoroughbred nursery where some of the breed’s most influential sires were born and raised. Marshall Jenney bred Danzig in partnership with William Farish, and foaled and raised Storm Cat for William Young at Derry Meeting. Jenney also bred English and Irish champion Mrs. Penny and millionaire Yankee Affair.
Marshall Jenney graduated from Princeton University and briefly worked on Wall Street in New York. He was an accomplished steeplechase rider and finished second in the 1962 Maryland Hunt Cup. Jenney settled in Chester County where he bought his 120acre farm which he expanded to over 400 acres. He raised Danzig and consigned him to the 1978 Saratoga yearling sale where he brought $310,000. As a race horse, Danzig won all three of his races and was retired to stud at Claiborne Farm in Kentucky where he influenced the breed around the world. He sired 156 stakes winners.
Marshall Jenney loved horses and throughout his lifetime created a thoroughbred dynasty. He died in 2000 at age sixty.
Fridays at Penn National are dog-friendly and patrons can bring their dogs to the races. Post time is 5:45 P.M.
