Jennifer Lappe eats, drinks and sleeps horses, according to her husband veterinarian John Kokinos. “She won’t even pick up a phone,” Kokinos said. Thus, Kokinos, who works closely with his wife with roughly 30 head of horses, became the stable spokesperson with a keen outlook on the stable’s weekend stock racing at The Meadowlands. Lappe and Here Comes Numbers will be first to post on Friday’s first race with the veteran tagged with post nine in the weekly GSY Club event. “Jennifer loves to drive,” said Kokinos. “She’s extremely critical of herself.” Lappe has nothing to be critical about when you look at her two drives, a second and a win in the last two weeks at The Meadowlands. “Here Comes Numbers is just super sharp right now,” said Kokinos. “I think that’s more to do with his soundness.” The 10-year-old went wire-to-wire in an easy 1:56 4/5 mile last week and for that exceptional effort was assigned the outer post nine this week. The Lappe barn is a longshot to sweep the double as they are once again hampered by the draw with Flamingo Pete landing post 10 in the second race of the evening, one for non-winners-of-two trotters. “He’s a green horse,” Kokinos said of Flamingo Pete. “He gets too excited even in the post parade and that takes something out of him.” When relaxed, Flamingo Pete has shown ability, with a second and third-place finish in this class among his last five outings. “I think he’s improving,” said Kokinos of the 4-year-old son of Valley Victor. “If we can get him to relax better he’ll be fine,” said Kokinos. For one reason or another Lappe has found herself owning and training many horses once under the care of the Burke stable. According to Kokinos, this is not an accident. “Ron Burke does a great job. He has people that do a fantastic job selecting horses. What Jennifer likes to do is scout his stable. I’ve heard her talk about specific horses that she’d like to buy one day,” said Kokinos. That day of course is when the horses fall out of favor and move into Lappe’s price range. The most recent purchase by Lappe and co-owner Robert Santagata is J K Fielding, a sophomore gelding entered in Saturday’s third race at The Meadowlands. “He was actually in the same qualifier as Bettor’s Edge,” said Kokinos about J K Fielding. “And Jennifer liked the way he looked.” So three days later when J K Fielding sold at the Winter Mixed Auction at The Meadowlands, Lappe and her co-owner scooped him up for $42,000. “A lot has changed in this business,” Kokinos said. “There was a time when if you had a 2-year-old that showed speed but wasn’t ready to tackle the best horses you turned them out and brought them back at 3.” As for J K Fielding, an original $120,000 yearling buy, the jury on his potential is still out. “He made a break in his last start and we’re going to make some equipment changes. We’re still trying to figure him out,” said Kokinos. One horse Lappe won’t have to figure out is Bettor’s Edge. The former Burke-trained gelding with over $2 million in career earnings had a solid first year with Lappe in 2017 but is not yet back to peak form. “He’s not a horse that you can train very fast, especially on a half-mile track,” said Kokinos. “And it hasn’t been that easy to train this winter with the weather. Normally we wouldn’t race him that many weeks in a row but I think it will help him get sharper.” Bettor’s Edge drew post four in Saturday’s seventh race, a $20,000 Preferred Handicap. The competition gets a little better with Christen Me N returning from post six and the Burke-trained millionaire Rockin Ron making his 2018 debut from post seven. With imports all around, Kokinos said that Lappe and Santagata are awaiting the arrival of two horses from Down Under. “We train next to Peter Tritton and you see the amazing job he’s done scouting horses down there,” said Kokinos. “He’s helped us locate a couple and we’re excited to see them. I think the good part of most of those horses is that they haven’t been raced that hard before arriving here.” The stable’s likely star Clear Vision has been on the shelf and is slowly on the way back. Clear Vision was a winner of $175,000 as an 11-year-old last year, his first after being purchased from Burke for $85,000. Though he won the $100,000 Levy consolation last year, Clear Vision will miss the series in 2018 as will Bettor’s Edge. “You can’t race him consecutive weeks on a half-mile track. He can be great one week and terrible the next,” said Kokinos of Bettor’s Edge, who may find stakes action elsewhere.