David Mattia

Plainfield, NJ --- Named after Messenger, the English-bred grandsire of Hambletonian, The Messenger Stakes was first held in 1956 at Roosevelt Raceway. Combined with the Cane Pace and the Little Brown Jug, the Messenger was added in order to create a Triple Crown for 3-year-old pacers. Essentially designed as a heat race for colts and geldings, Billy Haughton won the inaugural Messenger with a filly named Belle Acton.

Fifty-three years later, with only seven entrants in the box at Yonkers Raceway, this year’s Messenger will be a one-dash–for-the–cash event on Saturday night, Nov 7.

A purse of $542,060 might find the Noel Daley trainee and Pennsylvania Sire Stakes champion Doubleshotascotch walking away from the race a little “loaded” if he can overcome his unfavorable post seven draw.

Bred by Joan Stoddard of Pennington, N.J., David Scharf, one of harness racing’s iconic gentleman owners, shares ownership in the gelded bay son of Dragon Again–Pacific Sister K (Western Hanover) with a team of equally distinguished and astute partners: Adam Victor and Son Stable, Lindy Farms and Kenneth Tucci.

“Noel Daley picked the horse out at Harrisburg,” said Scharf. “I agreed with Noel’s choice as did my partners. We bought several horses at the sale and Doubleshotascotch was one of them.”

His conformation and pedigree aside, Noel Daley selected Doubleshotascotch because he’d previously trained his sister; a Real Artist filly named Sunshine Sister who had impressed him a year earlier.

USTA photo

Noel Daley

“I’d bought his sister -- the first one out of the mare,” said Daley. “Straightaway she finished third in the Countess Adios and third in the Sweetheart final. When she came back at three she wasn’t much, but she showed me enough to choose the brother.”

Winless as a 2-year-old, Doubleshotascotch was, however, a strong second to Buckeye Nation on Aug. 26, 2008, in a $48,858 PASS at Pocono where he paced a mile in 1:53.2. After a three-week hiatus he returned to The Red Mile in the Bret Hanover and finished second to Annieswesterncard in 1:53.1, but sickness caused him to be scratched from the Bluegrass on Sept. 27.

“He was getting better but as the season wore on he got sick at an inopportune time and after a few more races I stopped with him,” said Daley. “He’s just a very averaged sized horse -- not big at all but he was a nice package of a horse and he’d had a long season.”

As a 3-year-old, Doubleshotascotch quickly showed an affinity for the surface at Pocono Downs when he won a PASS event in 1:52.3 over a sloppy track for driver Andrew McCarthy. Later he would surprise even his trainer when he won the $200,000 PASS Championship final at Pocono in a lifetime best of 1:51.4.

USTA/Mark Hall photo

Doubleshotascotch has six wins in 2009, with earnings of $279,385.

“He’d shown that he could close from the start,” said Daley. “When he won the Championship at Pocono he did it from an impossible spot after Jimmy (Morrill) had let a few horses around him at the start. At the top of the straight I would have been happy to be third but he got up to win. It was a good effort.”

Two weeks later, in his Little Brown Jug elimination, the gelding was straddled with a difficult post (seven) and a rough trip.

“The same sort of thing happened to him in the Jug,” Daley said. “He drew bad and was buried back, but if he had done the same kind of thing at the Jug that he did at Pocono he would have won that elimination, but against the good ones that didn’t quite work out.”

Daley paints a picture of a horse that has everything going for him except for those few ticks of the timer that keep him a step behind the season’s leaders. Good luck, however, something that has often avoided the gelding, is the one thing Daley feels can put Doubleshotascotch’s nose on the wire with the top horses.

“He’s been a nice handy horse and he’s getting better,” Daley said. “He’s obviously not a top class horse but he’s definitely a horse that can upset if things go his way and that’s because he’s a very genuine horse. He’s going to be a nice handy horse for the rest of his career.”

In spite of his poor draw for The Messenger, Daley is leaning on luck and his horse’s honest nature.

“I think had he drawn inside he would have had a good chance for a real big piece of it,” Daley said. “From out there, well, he’s going to need a little luck for sure.”

The field for the Messenger Stakes, with declared drivers and morning line odds: 1-Fireintheshark (Jason Bartlett, 10-1); 2-Hypnotic Blue Chip (John Campbell, 3-1); 3-If I Can Dream (Tim Tetrick, 3-5); 4-Clear Vision (David Miller, 6-1); 5-Hail Storm (Jordan Stratton, 20-1); 6-Straight Shooting (Yannick Gingras, 3-5, coupled with If I Can Dream); 7-Doubleshotascotch (Jim Morrill, Jr., 15-1).