At the Meadowlands racetrack in East Rutherford, N.J., Nordic Catcher S secured victory in the 100th Hambletonian on Saturday, marking a third win in this prestigious harness racing event for driver and trainer Ake Svanstedt. The trotter narrowly defeated the previously unbeaten Super Chapter by a length, setting a new stakes record of 1:50.1, surpassing the time set by Muscle Hill in 2009 and equaling Philly Ramona Hill’s 2020 performance.<\/p>\n
Svanstedt, a Swedish Hall of Famer who has been based in the U.S. since 2014, expressed his admiration for the horse. He co-owns Nordic Catcher with Jeff Gural’s Little E LLC and has previously won the Hambletonian with Perfect Spirit in 2017 and Captain Corey in 2021, both of which he also trained and drove.<\/p>\n
The race saw Go Dog Go initially take the lead from post 10, challenging Nordic Catcher through three-quarters of the mile at 1:22.4. However, Nordic Catcher overtook the lead in the last eighth of a mile and maintained momentum to hold off Super Chapter\u2019s late surge.<\/p>\n
Nordic Catcher S boasts five wins and has earned $813,285 in prizes. The horse paid $11.20 to win as the third favorite with odds of 9-2.<\/p>\n
Fan Take: Nordic Catcher’s record-breaking win underscores the rising talent in the harness racing world and highlights Ake Svanstedt’s continued dominance as both a trainer and driver. This victory not only energizes fans but also signals a bright future for the sport as it blends tradition with new champions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At the Meadowlands racetrack in East Rutherford, N.J., Nordic Catcher S secured victory in the 100th Hambletonian on Saturday, marking a third win in this prestigious harness racing event for driver and trainer Ake Svanstedt. The trotter narrowly defeated the previously unbeaten Super Chapter by a length, setting a new stakes record of 1:50.1, surpassing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4704,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2443],"tags":[2955],"class_list":{"0":"post-18267","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fighting","8":"tag-horse-racing"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}