The Hector Herrera stable’s Mr Charisma, a past Hawthorne Pace winner, goes postward in Sunday’s feature. (Four Footed Fotos) 

By Mike Paradise for the I.H.H.A.

  The final two programs of Hawthorne’s winter meet get underway today and the 12-race card stands alone nationwide on Super Bowl Sunday for harness racing devotees.

  All the other pari-mutuel racetracks across the country are dark today. Hawthorne will race on its own but with a much earlier 1 o’clock first post. Monday’s final program of the meeting will have its regular 7:10 pm first post.

 Both Opens for pacers saw insufficient entries to be contested for the third straight week, so a high-level viable conditioned pace will be Sunday’s feature and it doesn’t lack in volume or competitiveness for the betting public.

 The eighth race conditioned pace for non-winners of $4,001 ($5,000 for ICF horses) has a full field of 10 pacers going to the gate and a number of them have competed in Opens, such as Play Me Rock (Mike Oosting), Ben Racin (Cordarius Stewart) Shakertown (Brandon Bates), Fox Valley Cayman (Kyle Wilfong) and the Héctor Herrera’ stable’s Mr Charisma (Todd Warren).

 Sunday’s headliner will be Mr Charisma’s first outing of the Hawthorne winter meet not in the Open, an event he won back in mid-December for his owner Garcia Power, Inc. of Crete, Illinois.

 The now six-year-old Betterthancheddar gelding was claimed for $44,000 by Herrera at Hoosier Park in late May and has earned almost $40,000 since his acquisition.

 “Mr Charisma loves is work,” said his trainer, one of the rare harness horsemen who is a native of Guatemala. “The horse just loves to compete.”

 After the Hoosier Park meeting closed in mid-November, Hector shifted his operations to the Hawthorne winter meet where his 16-horse stable won 25 races going into Sunday’s card. Herrera’s horses banked over $400,000 in 2023, his fourth year on his own as a trainer.

 Hector resides near currently defunct Balmoral Park in Crete, Illinois.

 “After Hawthorne closes I’ll rest my horses and then get them ready when Hoosier opens again. It’s a six to seven hour drive from my place to the Indiana track, so I make sure by horses get rested before they race. I believe a key to success in thus business is to get your horses the proper time off, and of course, classification.”

 Since Hector hails from Guatemala, a country without a racetrack, how did he get into the harness racing?

 “Through my cousin Gilbert Garcia Herrera,” he answered, “I worked for him for a while to learn the business.”

 Gilbert-Garcia Herrera has trained the winners of over 3,300 races and routinely among the leading trainers at New York’s Yonkers Raceway

 Herrara’s Mr Charisma leaves from post five in Sunday’s eighth race feature and will catch-driven tonight by Todd Warren

 The first four slots will be manned by Shakertown (Brandon Bates), Yankee Roller A (Patrizio Ancora), Franksnativewestern (Gary Rath) and then ultra-consistent Playtorock (Juan Franco), in that order. Fox Valley Steeler (Casey Leonard), Blacklight (Travis Seekman) Ben Racin (Cordarius Stewart), the 5-2 morning line favorite Play Me Rock (Mike Oosting), and Fox Valley Cayman (Kyle Wilfong, posts 6 through 10) complete the field.

 Cordarius Stewart, who has spent the winter working for the Erv Miller stable in Florida, is on hand to tonight to catch-drive. Besides Ben Racin, Cordarius will handle Fox Valley Lizzy (7th race) Fox Valley Falcon (9th race), Copper Teen (10th) and Cutting Class) 11th race)