Dave a Cup contender

He's named after one of the top drivers in harness racing, and now Dave Panlone will be looking to tackle the continent's best 3-year-old pacing colts in Saturday evening's $50,000 eliminations for the $1.5-million Pepsi North America Cup at Woodbine.

With Dave Palone retained to be at his lines, Dave Panlone, a son of The Panderosa, will start from post three in the eight-horse third elim (Race 9, 10:28 p.m.) and is pegged as the 9-2 third choice in the morning line.

The bay, trained by Jim Arledge, raced 10 times as a 2 year old and notched four wins, a single place finish and two thirds, good for $68,992 in purses.

Since a pair of qualifiers to start his 2006 campaign, Dave Panlone has raced twice over the Meadows five-eighths of a mile oval, both front-end efforts in late May (20 and 27). Both dashes were easy tests for the career winner of six races and $81,988 in earnings, as he triumphed in both tilts, stopping the clock in 1:52.4 and 1:52.2, respectively.

"He's grown up more and matured mentally," said Arledge, who trains the colt for Ohio's James Stambaugh and Milton Leeman. "He had a good year last season, but it was a tough year – Pennsylvania's got a really tough sire stake program. Towards the end of the year, I think he was getting a little bit tired down in Lexington. He had a couple of rough trips where he got locked in. He choked one week while sitting in a hole. But this year, he's just gotten more mature, mentally stronger and has come back well."

Many of Dave Panlone's Cup rivals have geared up for the elims by hitting the stakes path early – something that Dave Panlone has avoided, by design.

"The main thing was to keep him away from all of them [the top colts] until this [the NA Cup] came around," explained Arledge, who also noted that his charge can handle the front, but is better coming from off the pace. "I didn't want him to be stretched out against all of these colts and then have to come to Woodbine tired or stretched out. I'd rather have him come into it fresh and see how he can do."

It can be said that Dave Panlone's elim is the weakest of the three, but Arledge knows that none of these colts can be taken lightly.

"They're all tough, good horses or else they wouldn't be in there," Arledge said. "If anything, you just need a lot of racing luck and I hope we get some of it."

« Back