Hot Hitter

Hot Hitter (foaled 1976) was a bay Standardbred Champion racehorse who won two of the Pacing Triple Crown races in 1979 while on his way to setting a single-season earnings record of $826,542 for a harness horse.^[1]

Purchased as a yearling by trainer Lou Meittinis for the bargain-basement price of $21,000, Hot Hitter would eventually sell to various investors for $6 million.^[2]

Racing career

For his important races, Hot Hitter was driven by Harness Racing Hall of Fame inductee Hervé Filion. Racing as a two-year-old he met with limited success but at age three developed into the 1979 U.S. Champion 3-year-old pacer.

Triple Crown races

On June 30, 1979 Happy Motoring nipped Hot Hitter at the wire in the first leg of the Triple Crown series, the Cane Pace at Yonkers Raceway.^[3] However, on September 20 at County Fairgrounds in Delaware, Ohio Hot Hitter soundly beat Happy Motoring in the Little Brown Jug, the second leg of the Triple Crown and North America's most prestigious harness race for pacers. The Cane Pace winner finished a distant seventh in the Jug's eight‐horse field.^[4] On October 27 at Roosevelt Raceway, Hot Hitter easily won the 3rd leg of the series, the Messenger Stakes.^[5]

World Record performance

The Prix d'Été, another of the big wins of Hot Hitter's career, took place August 26, 1979 at Blue Bonnets Raceway in Montréal, Québec. His winning time of 1:54 in Canada's then richest and most important race set a new world record for a 5/8 mile track.^[6] While not a world record, Hot Hitter's win in the 1979 Adios Pace was another memorable performance. He won both heats, on a muddy track, in the process defeating Sonsam who had set a world record for a one-mile oval in winning the July 19 Meadowlands Pace and was widely seen as invincible.

Stud record

Hot Hitter failed a fertility test that led to a $1.3 million insurance payment.^[7] As a result, he would produce only a small number of offspring. Of his progeny, the best performance was by his gelded son Willie Mays who won in a time of 1:53.2.^[8]

References