Breeders Crown: Emoticon Hanover defends Open Mare Trot title

Emoticon Hanover won last year's Breeders Crown Open Mare Trot at Hoosier Park, and she did the same thing this year at The Downs at Mohegan Sun Pocono, coming three-wide out of the pocket in the lane and getting up to win the $250,000 dash in 1:54 1/5.

Driven by Daniel Dube, Emoticon Hanover cleared Caprice Hill (Brian Sears) for the top spot passing the 27 1/5 opening quarter. Ariana G (Yannick Gingras) continued to drive up on the outside from post eight at that time, and she was able to wrestle control away from Emoticon Hanover as they raced through the stretch for the inital time.

Ariana G got away with just a 56 4/5 half and a 1:25 2/5 three-quarters, but Ice Attraction (Ake Svanstedt), who had gotten away last, came with an eye-popping three-wide move in the backstretch that carried her on to even terms with Ariana G as they raced through the final bend and into the lane.

Ice Attraction was able to get an advantage over Ariana G, but her bid began to understandably flatten out as they raced through the lane, and Emoticon Hanover pounced, moving to Ice Attraction's outside and getting up for the win by three-parts of a length. Caprice Hill came back on for third ahead of NF Happenstance (Jack Parker Jr.), with Ariana G fading to fifth.

"She's nice right now. She's good and she's like last year," said Dube. "She starts to grab on and she's in good shape. I wanted to do almost the same like last week, follow Yannick and go to the passing lane finishing. I had to go to the outside this time, but it worked out anyway.

"She does everything right. She can leave the gate, and she can race from behind too. She showed that this year. Now she's more relaxed. She's just a special mare."

A 5-year-old daughter of Kadabra, Emoticon Hanover is trained by Luc Blais for owner Determination. Emoticon Hanover now has 21 wins in her life, and she pushed her bankroll to $1,367,076. She was the 2-1 second choice and returned $6.20 to win.

Ice Attraction's second-place effort was more than acceptable for Svanstedt.

“She was good, better than I thought,” Svanstedt said. “It was unlucky she did not win. It was a tough race. The horses two wide were not moving forward, so I took the three wide. She felt good, but Dube’s horse came faster and beat me.”