3 world champs in Battle

Three of the eight horses--My Boy David, Maltese Artist and Gold Dust Beach--in Northfield Park’s $125,000 Battle of Lake Erie on Saturday are world champions, accounting for five world records.

Shirley Le Vin’s My Boy David set a 2-year-old gelding, half-mile track standard when he stopped the Maywood Park timer in 1:52.4 in October of 2005 and then came back last August to pace a 1:47.4 mile at the Springfield, Ill. Fairgrounds, fastest ever by a sophomore gelding. Maltese Artist used his 1:48.3 win at Dover Downs as a springboard to his 2005 Battle win. The second anniversary of that race, fastest ever on a five-eighths mile track and also a 4-year old mark, is Wednesday. Gold Dust Beach, the sport’s newest world champ, is looking to duplicate Maltese Artist’s path to Battle glory. The Joe Holloway trainee’s 1:49 win at Dover on April 2 makes him the fastest veteran pacer ever on a five-eighths mile track, erasing the great Riyadh from the record books.

With so many horses these days limiting their campaigns to bigger tracks, a number of top horses this year seem to be focusing on the traditional half-mile oval. Maltese Artist and Mister Big have been dominating the George Morton Levy Series at Yonkers Raceway. The pair has combined for four wins in five series starts. The only loss either has suffered at The Hilltop is when Mister Big defeated Maltese Artist on April 7.

Dodgeball, trained by Tom Fanning for New Hampshire owner Elliot Misshula, had a solid year last year at three, winning over $150,000, but he has blossomed this year, campaigning exclusively on half-mile tracks. He has won three of four starts at Yonkers and Freehold, with his only loss coming in his seasonal debut. Interestingly, he has been driven this year by David Miller and Greg Grismore. Both will be at the Battle, but driving other horses. Dodgeball’s Battle driver is still to be announced.

Northfield’s high-banked turns make it unusual among half-mile tracks, but several horses and horsemen competing in the Battle have experience over the Flying Turns. Ataboyart has been the dominant Invitational horse locally this year, and he gets Northfield’s second leading driver, Ryan Stahl.

Stahl, 29, a standout high school athlete in basketball and baseball, apprenticed under Wall-of-Famer Gerry Bookmyer. Maltese Artist won the 2005 Battle of Lake Erie, and one of his owners, Jim Koran, lives in Macedonia, the city just south of Northfield. He has raced numerous horses here over the years.

Drivers Miller and Pete Wrenn have won the race previously, and three-time driving champ, Grismore, who returns from Yonkers for the Battle, nearly won it with Cambest Prince on two occasions. Mister Big’s trainer, Virgil Morgan Jr., won the local training title in 1999 with 212 conditioning wins. (Northfield Park)

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