Hollywood’s Hits: Breaking down the Mack Lobell Elitlopp Playoff card

Some numbers on Sunday’s special afternoon Mother’s Day card at the Meadowlands:

91 horses entered
48 of them are female
58 are trotters
21 of the trotters are female
Other notes:

The three richest horses in the opening race, the Mack Lobell Elitlopp Playoff, drew the outside three posts.

The two trotting mares in the race, Bee A Magician and Shake It Cerry, have a combined $6,219,200 in lifetime earnings. The seven males have a combined lifetime bankroll of $5,867,674.

Four of the horses in that race have a better than 50 per cent lifetime winning percentage:

• Bee A Magician — 66 per cent
• Shake It Cerry — 60 per cent
• J L Cruze — 58.5 per cent
• Obrigado 55 per cent
• The field is a combined 225 for 515 — 44 per cent.

Stingers

Bee A Magician was the richest ever single season female trotter in 2013 with over $1.5 million. She exceeded Moni Maker’s prior best of $1.484 million in the Moni Maker stake to end the year a perfect 17-for-17.

Bee A Magician last year banked $980,845, making her the richest horse in the sport over the age of three.

Bee A Magician is trying to do what only Good Time has done — be Horse Of The Year three years apart (Good Time did it in 1949, 1952).

The last North American bred to win the Elitlopp was a mare: Moni Maker.

Bee A Magician averages $56,499 per start
Shake It Cerry averages $54,145 per start

Cruzing?

J L Cruze was 16-for-21 last year as a four-year-old and looms as the horse to beat in the Elitlopp Playoff, especially when you consider the combined four-year-old wins for Bee A Magician (four), Resolve (four), Gural Hanover (one) and Shake It Cerry (five) was 14.

Crazy

Crazed is the only sire with three sons in the Elitlopp Playoff — J L Cruze, Gural Hanover and Crazy Wow. Should Crazy Wow advance and make it to Sweden, remember that it has been 28 years since any four-year-old has won the Elitlopp final (Mack Lobell in 1988).
Nearly a Hat Trick

Pinkman was not made eligible for the Elitlopp Playoff, or we would have had the last three Trotters Of The Year in this field.
Seeing double HOY

With Bee A Magician and Wiggle It Jiggleit competing this year, it marks a historic first. Never in the Meadowlands era (1976-2016) has there been a year where a trotter that was Horse of the Year has raced while a pacer that was also Horse of the Year is also still racing. The last time this happened was 1972, when 1970’s spectacular HOY trotting mare Fresh Yankee was winding up her career and the four-year-old Albatross was en route to defending the HOY title in 1972 he captured as a sophomore.