Holton trainee wins PASS split

Muckross won a division of a $116,965 Pennsylvania Sires Stake for 2-year-old trotting fillies at The Meadows on Saturday, giving trainer Terry Holton his first stakes victory since his most recent cancer surgery.

The stake, known as the Meadow Gladys, was contested in five divisions, with Real Hope, Fancy Flash, Kingsgold Hanover and Upmarket Hanover taking the other splits. Dan Altmeyer scored a training double and Mike Wilder a driving double with Kingsgold Hanover and Upmarket Hanover.

The victory by Muckross, a daughter of Tagliabue making her pari-mutuel debut for driver Ryan Holton, was mostly professional; she bore out slightly in the final turn but won wire-to-wire by 2 1/4 lengths in 2:01.3. Penn Tag was second, with Misty Star K finishing third.

The real drama was in the paddock, where Holton, only 9 1/2 weeks removed from surgery to excise a stomach tumor, looked on with anticipation. The popular veteran horseman previously survived pancreatic cancer—the stomach tumor was unrelated to that disease—and has resumed a full workload, training six head at his Ohio base.

“It really is gratifying,” Holton said. “Who knew I would even be here? I’m so happy for my son, too. He’s a good driver who deserves to be driving every night.”

Holton said his medical team has given him a clean bill of health.

“They said everything looks good in there,” he noted. “The oncologist said: ‘Just go on. With your quality of life right now, I’m not going to do a thing.’”

Holton, who trains Muckross for Douglas Millard, PC Wellwood Ent., Ron O’Neill and Sandra Burns, acquired the filly at the London yearling sale for the bargain-basement price of $2,500. She’s exceeded even his expectations.

“I trained a lot of nice BF Coaltown fillies for Charlie Hill back in the ’60s and early ’70s,” Holton said, “but I’d say she’s the best trotting filly I ever trained. From day one, all she’s known is trot. I train her with hoppled pacers, and any time you can get a trotting filly to trot right home with hoppled pacers, you know you have a nice filly.”

Real Hope, who captured a division of the World Series at Hawthorne in her career debut, remained perfect with a handy 4 1/2-length victory in 2:01.1. Both victories came after trainer Doug Ackerman added hopples to the homebred daughter of SJ’s Caviar.

“She trained down perfectly all year, then the first two qualifiers, she broke,” driver D.R. Ackerman said. “I don’t know what the problem was. We put the hopples on her and she’s back to the horse we always thought she’d be. She just trots and away she goes. I’m hoping she keeps improving; she’ll need to. She’s even better on a mile track than she is on a small track where gets a little tied up in the turns.”

Gia closed well to be second while Yuno My Brutha saved show.

Though a maiden entering the race, Kingsgold Hanover had triumphed once before at The Meadows; she was the $21,000 sales topper at the Adios Yearling Sale last year.

“I like the family,” said Altmeyer, who owns the daughter of SJ’s Caviar-Keystone Colorful with Jack B. Piatt II. “Roger Hammer raced her dam, and she was a great mare. This filly was very athletic on the video, so I decided to buy her.”

Kingsgold Hanover was in an unenviable position—fourth after a slowish half in 1:02.1. But she sustained a first-over move that belied her inexperience, scoring by 1 1/4 lengths in 2:02.3. Honalulu Lulu was 1 1/4 lengths back in second, with Oven Ready finishing third.

“She really doesn’t have any high speed, but she’s a great grinder,” Altmeyer said. “She stays trotting all the time. She doesn’t act like she’s the fastest filly in the country, but she’s certainly honest.”

(Meado

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