The up-and-coming younger performers attracted the Friday spotlight at Harrah’s Philadelphia, ahead of two consecutive cards with Pennsylvania Sire Stakes races for two-year-olds, with three $12,600 events for the various classifications.
The Somebeachsomewhere sophomore colt Literl Lad Hanover, a Pennsylvania Sire Stakes winner earlier this year, got back on the winning track with a lifetime mark of 1:50.4 going wire-to-wire against the pacing males. Driver George Napolitano, Jr. put the three-year-old quickly on the lead and hung up splits of :27.1, :55.3, and 1:22.3 while boosting his lifetime earnings to $172,611 for the meet’s leading trainer, Ron Burke, and the partnership of Burke Racing Stable LLC and Weaver Bruscemi LLC, J&T Silva- Purnel & Libby, and Wingfield Five LLC.