Road from Iowa to New Jersey leads to winner's circle

December 16, 2007

It was a fairytale ending to a Cinderella-like story as Panaramic Art rolled to his 14th straight win in the $60,000 Oil Burner final on Saturday night at the Meadowlands.

Panaramic Art followed Wynnfield Flash to the top in a :55.4 half and opened up to a 3 1/2-length lead as they entered the stretch. He responded when asked by driver George Brennan in the final sixteenth and held off the late charge of Wynnfield Flash to win in a stakes record time of 1:51.1. Panaramic Art paid $4.60 to win.

�There definitely was some concern coming in a week off being sick,� noted Brennan, �but we think he�s a pretty good colt. A good colt comes with all his cards on the table and shows up, and that�s what he did. He (Wynnfield Flash) was hard used getting to the half, not taking anything away from him, but my colt was covered up right to the top, rated the third-quarter and then just sprinted off.�

Panaramic Art�s path to the Meadowlands winner�s circle was not a typical one. He came by way of Iowa.

Roger Roland of Grinnell, Iowa, bred the son of Hot Pans. His grandson, Will Roland, trained and drove the gelding on the small Iowa fair circuit through September 2007. Panaramic Art was first or second in all 13 of his starts as a 2 year old. He continued to impress at three, catching the eye of trainer Al Meyer and current owners Leonard Bogner and Stefano Scarogni, who race as the Squawk Box Stable of Monroe Township, N.J., and Deborah Adwokat (Keep The Dream Going Inc.) of Scarsdale, N. Y. The partnership purchased the gelding privately from Roger Roland for $60,000 on Oct. 5, 2007. Meyer took over the training duties and the gelding added to his skein of wins when he shipped east.

After winning the first round of the Oil Burner in a career best 1:50.3, Panaramic Art was scratched out of last week�s second leg of the series.

�He came in sick, so you never know how depleted or run down they�re going to be,� said trainer Meyer. �Obviously, he bounced back pretty quick. It�s a big relief.

�When I was training him, he coughed six or seven times, but he was training fine,� Meyer explained. �He coughed again, so we scoped him and he was full of mucous. It was yellow mucous, allergy-related, but we had to scratch him. We scoped him Tuesday before we entered him and he was better. We trained him on Wednesday and he scoped okay.

Panaramic Art has now won 18 of 19 starts in 2007, and 25 of 32 lifetime. His lone loss this season was a fifth-place finish on July 8. (Meadowlands)

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