Scioto: 'Rangers' set for Breeders Crown stage

Senena Esty is excited for this weekend’s Breeders Crown finals at Eldorado Scioto Downs, she just doesn’t want to think about them.

Esty and her husband, Jeff, own Spring Haven Farm in Utica, Ohio, located about an hour northeast of Scioto Downs. Two Breeders Crown trotting finalists – the brother and sister duo of 3-year-old colt Big Ranger and 2-year-old filly Blue Ranger – hail from the Estys’ breeding operation. Both horses, by In Range out of the mare Big Blue Bird, head to their finals as elimination winners.

Full siblings have never won Breeders Crowns in the same year. The closest instance occurred in 2011 when half-brothers Bettor Sweet (by Bettor’s Delight) and Sweet Lou (by Yankee Cruiser) won at Woodbine Racetrack to make mom Sweet Future proud.

“I don’t even like to mentally go there,” Esty said with a laugh, referring to Big Ranger and Blue Ranger’s potentially own sweet future this weekend. “You hate to get too pumped up about it, so I’m just trying to stay cool and calm.”

Blue Ranger will be the first of the siblings to head to the track when Scioto Downs hosts all four $700,000 Grade 1 Breeders Crown finals for 2-year-olds on Friday (Oct. 23). The remaining eight Grade 1 events, for horses 3 and up, will take place on Saturday. First-race post time both nights is 6 p.m. (EDT).

Trained by Marcus Melander, Blue Ranger won her elimination last week by a length over Nevis Peak in 1:53 1/5, equaling her own track record that she established Sept. 12 in capturing the $300,000 Ohio Sires Stakes championship for freshman filly trotters. That time is also the fastest this season for 2-year-old filly trotter on a five-eighths-mile oval.

Esty won’t claim that she knew from day one that Blue Ranger could be that kind of filly.

“She was an average-sized filly as a weanling, and she was OK,” Esty recalled. “She was nice – she wasn’t nice. Everything about her was correct, but she did have a little bit of an attitude. I like to scratch them and bend down to kiss them, or whatever us girls do, and she might have wanted to take your face off. It was like, OK, we won’t be kissing her too often.

“Then I literally remember one day I was out feeding the yearlings, and I hadn’t seen that group for a while because me and my husband rotate what fields we do. I walked out and I looked at her rear end, and I was like, wow, this filly … is that Bluebird’s? Of course, all she had to do was turn around and show that blaze on her face. And, wow, did she change. From that point on, I really, really liked her. She really developed in her later yearling phases.”

Blue Ranger went for a sale-topping $210,000 at the 2025 Ohio Selected Jug Sale. She has three wins and three third-place finishes in seven starts this season, with earnings of $251,480 for owner Bender Sweden Inc.

The auction price for Blue Ranger was in contrast to that for Big Ranger, who went for $25,000 the previous year, but his success as a 2-year-old helped fuel interest in the filly. And whereas Blue Ranger left little initial impression upon Esty, the young Big Ranger was the opposite.

“He was just a really good-natured colt, just a real sweet personality, and I liked him kind of from the get-go,” Esty said, adding about his yearling price, “I was honestly disappointed. I wondered what I missed. Maybe I was thinking too much of him, but I thought he was a very well-conformed colt with good size. He was big, but not too big; he wasn’t too clunky. He had a good look about him.”

Big Ranger proved Esty’s belief in him was warranted, winning all seven of his starts at 2, including an Ohio Sires Stakes championship, and being named Ohio’s Horse of the Year for trainer/driver Ronnie Gillespie. This season, his exploits include a second Ohio Sires Stakes title and memorable stretch duel with Apex in the Grade 1 Hambletonian Stakes, losing by a whisker. For his career, the colt has 15 wins and a second-place finish in 19 races and $965,959 in purses for owner Madison Global. He won his Breeders Crown elim by 2-1/4 lengths over Nix Nacken in 1:51 1/5 for trainer Anette Lorentzon.

So, what has Esty seen from her “kids” that’s most impressed her so far.

“Besides what they've already demonstrated on the track, I love their gait,” she said. “I like how they go with their head kind of down, and they seem to really dig in. There really is not a lot of wasted motion up front. That's what I like to see about them. They just go easy.”

And while Esty would rather not think about the weekend’s finals, she is happy the Breeders Crown is being held in Ohio. Scioto Downs is hosting all 12 Breeders Crown events for the first time after being the site of single Breeders Crown finals in 1986 and 1988.

“It’s just huge having it at Scioto Downs,” she said. “It means so much. We were over there for the eliminations, and it looks like they're ready. They've done a great job, so fingers crossed it’ll go off without a hitch now.”

The draws for eight of the Breeders Crown finals were held over the weekend (with Blue Ranger getting post 3) and the remaining four – the Open Pace, Open Trot, 3-Year-Old Colt & Gelding Pace, 3-Year-Old Colt & Gelding Trot – will be conducted Tuesday at 6:15 p.m. during an event at Pinnacle Golf Club in Grove City, Ohio. The draws can be watched live via the Ohio Harness Horsemen’s Association YouTube channel.