Woodbine Mohawk park: Pelling takes aim at Metro with Papi Rob Hanover

Analytics have taken over nearly every sport imaginable. Harness racing is no different and trainer Brett Pelling was quite aware of the numbers heading into last year’s Harrisburg yearling sale.

“I think it was something like a 4 percent chance that a foal from a Rocknroll Hanover-sired dam would earn $1 million,” Pelling said. “I think that number could have made people look in another direction.”

Fortunately for Pelling, who trained Rocknroll Hanover to stardom as a juvenile back in 2004, was undeterred by the stats and looked at Papi Rob Hanover, a Somebeachsomewhere-sired colt from a Rocknroll Hanover-sired mare named Panera Hanover. “He was just a gorgeous horse,” Pelling said, reflecting on his first instincts. Behind the looks was a bottom-heavy pedigree. “It’s hard to match the type of speed the dam’s side has produced.”

With $130,000, owner David McDuffee purchased the colt for Pelling and allowed the next phase to develop.

For Pelling, who is making a comeback in the U.S. after returning home for a number of years, the chance to buy high-level yearlings and make them into champions was essentially what he was inspired to do. Having accomplished the feat in his theoretical prime with horses like the aforementioned Rocknroll Hanover and The Panderosa, Papi Rob Hanover may not have been the most expensive purchase, but he gave Pelling the feeling of something special.

“He reminded me a lot of Rocknroll Hanover,” said Pelling, who has mixed feelings for the horses he’s trained by the sire Somebeachsomewhere. “They’re not very easy horse to be around.”

In particular the mannerisms of Papi Rob Hanover were similar to Rocknroll Hanover. “You don’t want to get their feelings hurt,” said Pelling. “From the moment we broke him he was always following other horses. I didn’t sit behind him that much. I wanted to make sure he followed.”

While there were always high hopes for Papi Rob Hanover, Pelling wanted to treat him like a horse that was in it for the long run and not one that needed to be ready when the Meadowlands opened to training juveniles in May. “I wasn’t interested in going to the Meadowlands and training in 1:55 with him,” Pelling said. “For me it was about getting him ready to be at his best for the second and third week in September.”

Those dates just happen to coincide with The Metro at Woodbine Mohawk Park. It would be some 15 years since Rocknroll Hanover exploded onto the scene by capturing the premier juvenile event in sub-1:50 speed for the very first time.

For Pelling and Papi Rob Hanover, this year’s Metro will likely be the first test of many against the leading juveniles in training. With the sport becoming far more regional at this time, with high-level State-bred championship races in places like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Kentucky spreading talent far and wide, the Metro acts as the first meeting place for many.

“I was originally going to take him (Papi Rob Hanover) up to Mohawk for the Champlain and Nassagaweya,” said Pelling. “I kind of had a second thought that he might have to be there too long and there was a gap between the races.”

So instead of racing in Canada, Papi Rob Hanover got his stakes schedule in gear racing at Tioga and then the Downs at Mohegan Sun Pocono. As has been Pelling’s M.O. for quite some time, the early lines didn’t exactly lead anyone to believe that Papi Rob Hanover was even a stakes horse. Though his first pari-mutuel start was a third-place finish behind Tall Dark Stranger on July 26 at The Meadowlands, Pelling confessed that driver David Miller didn’t come off the track as a fan. “He thought he was just O.K.,” said Pelling. “I said the horse paced a back half in 53 seconds.”

Miller stayed with Papi Rob Hanover for another off-the-pace effort in the Geers at Tioga Downs on August 9. “I just wanted to ship the horse and have him comfortable,” said Pelling of the experience.

Papi Rob Hanover and Miller were a bit more motivated when they teamed for a second-place finish in a Pennsylvania Sires event at Pocono on August 18. On August 29, Papi Rob Hanover came to Harrah’s Philadelphia needing a victory to have any chance of qualifying for the $252,000 final and this time Miller took no chances, putting the colt on the front end and winning effortlessly in 1:50 4/5. “David (Miller) got off the bike and said that he didn’t realize how fast the colt was going because he was doing it so easily,” Pelling said.

Needless to say, Miller showed that he had supreme confidence in Papi Rob Hanover in last Sunday’s rich final by sending the colt on a prolonged brush from the quarter to gain control and then blistering to a 1:50 2/5 stakes-record performance.

The victory was a dominant one but Pelling wasn’t ready for a victory lap just yet. “At this point you really don’t know what the level is of the horses he’s beaten,” said Pelling. “I think some of the colts he raced against Sunday have been beaten up pretty good.”

Therein lies the plight of assessing any of this year’s freshman class. At Mohawk there has been an abundance of very fast miles, whether it’s in the Dream Maker series or the subsequent stakes events, the class has already posted sub-1:50 miles. Trainer Tony Alagna seems to have more than a few that could go at that level. Trainer Nancy Johansson has Tall Dark Stranger, who to date appears to be living up to his $330,000 yearling purchase price.

Papi Rob Hanover enters the Metro with just five career starts, only two of those front-end efforts. Despite his dominance over the Pennsylvania-sired foes over the last two weeks, the next two weeks will be more of a defining moment in the young colt’s career.

Win or lose Pelling credits the lessons he’s learned along the way for the guidance of juvenile development. “During the times I had horses for Brittany it was always about the way Gene Riegle wouldn’t rush young horses,” Pelling said. “I tried to learn from that advice.”