Stacey Chiodo, who trained Bruce Springsteen’s pleasure horses before she made a full-time commitment to harness racing seven years ago, thinks that Mighty Young Joe was “Born To Run” and she has every confidence that he’ll race well in the $94,000 Four Leaf Clover final on Saturday night at the Meadowlands.
Chiodo, who is harness racing’s fastest woman driver, also owns Mighty Young Joe with her mother, Pamela Menosky. The 5-year-old son of Blissfull Hall drew post five in the 10-horse field.
While winless in both preliminaries, Mighty Young finished a strong second, three-quarters of a length behind Art At Heart, in the first division of the series, and followed that with a fifth-place finish in the second division, pacing in 1:51.2 despite being parked out passing the three-quarter pole in 1:22.3. Chiodo, 31, became the fastest woman driver in the history of the sport when she guided Mighty Young Joe to a 1:50.3 victory in an overnight event at Harrah’s “When I decided to be a driver that was a goal I set for myself,” said Chiodo. “I wanted to be the fastest. Achieving that goal with my mom’s horse made it that much more rewarding.” So far Mighty Young Joe has earned $167,279 with 11 wins in 80 starts. Chiodo and her mother bought the horse out of the 2004 New Jersey Classic Yearling Sale for the very modest price of $4,500. “Actually, my mom had him marked off in the catalog before I did because he has a great pedigree,” said Chiodo, “but when we went to see him in his stall mom kind of backed off because he had a really nasty looking bone scar on the outside of his left hind leg. I knew that it wasn’t anything that would bother him. I figured it was just a bone bruise that wasn’t in a crucial spot. Turns out I was right, but that scar scared off a lot of people and we got him for a bargain price.” Menosky is almost as proud of Might Young Joe as she is of her daughter Stacy. “As an owner, you always dream about having a horse like Mighty Young Joe,” said Menosky. “He’s a dream horse for me and to have my daughter achieve what she has achieved with my horse makes for something so special I just can’t put it into words.”--By David Mattia
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