Trainer Jerome Daniels brought home TVS Kosmac to win the first division of aged state-bred trotters Wednesday at Springfield. (Al Brodsky Photo)

By Mike Paradise for the IHHA

  After back-to-back postponements because of the aftereffects of rain, the Illinois Department of Agriculture’s second Spring Previews for Illinois bred pacers and trotters, ages three and up, got under way Wednesday with its lengthy 20 race program at Springfield’s Illinois State Fairgrounds.

 Always a popular event for Illinois horsemen, the card, horses were sent out on the racetrack by groups according to age, sex and gait with a trio of ICF pacing fillies going postward first.

 The first heat couldn’t have been any closer as the pacesetter Fox Valley Groupie (Travis Seekman) and the come-from behind pacer Fox Valley Starlet (Wyatt Avenatti) finished in a dead heat, both timed in 1:57.3. Jezibel Mooss (Juan Franco) was a close third.

 Lotties Webb (Brandon Bates) overcame a first over journey to go two-for-two in her second season, nosing out Fox Valley My Girl (Jordan Patton) in the final strides of a 1:56.4 mile. Wildcat Abby (Cordarius Stewart), a 10-time winner as freshman, was well in hand at the end of her 1:55.1 front-stepping mile.

 A quartet of second season state-bred male pacers were next. In the first event, nicely handled by catch-driver Travis Seekman, Fox Valley Stoli proved best (1:58.4) in his season debut. Not long after Seekman greeted the track photographer again when Battin Bob breezed in 1:55 flat racing on the front end. Fox Valley Boxer held off a late surge by Fox Valley Silent to give Travis another winner, this one by a long nose in 1:56 flat.

 Cash Money Twenty’s season debut turned out to be a little more than a training mile for trainer Mike Brink with a 1:58.2 victory Steered by Brandon Bates with the absence of regular driver Casey Leonard, Cash Money Twenty was rough gaited behind the game, got off slowly and dropped into fourth. After a pedestrian 1:01.2 half, the Stevensville gelding sped the top and came home in 27 seconds.

 A pair of 3-year-old filly trots saw Bates come right back and win with multi-stakes freshman champion Kays In Charge (1:59) in easy fashion in the first heat while Toughestofthetough (Juan Franco) overtook a tiring Lou’s My Number (Steve Searle) in the lane to win in 1:58. The latter cut a fast :55.3 first half in his season debut before fading.

 Keep an eye on the Grummel family’s Sunburnt Silverado (Curt Grummel) in his sophomore season. The Lou’s Legacy trotting gelding looked very good in his 2025 debut, breezing in 1:58.2, seven lengths the best, and there was obviously plenty more left in the tank. The second division trot was an easy-going win for Frontier Macho in 1:58.4, Brandon Bates’ fourth winning drive of the program.

 Three groupings of state-bred aged pacing mares took over the Springfield spotlight with the initial split going to Kizzzsmelikeumissme, well rated by Wyatt Avenatti in 1:54.3, knocking more than two seconds off the home-bred’s previous career mark. Seekman picked up another win driving Adalecia (1:53.4) in the second heat coming off the pace. There was no catching Filly’s Revenge as she again motored home in 1:54.2 for Avenatti in event three.

 The complexion of the first division for aged ICF male pacers changed dramatically when the deservedly heralded Fox Valley Landen was scratched. That left the door open for Fox Valley Kodiak to step through it and make it back-to-back triumphs for the Nelson Willis family, this one in 1:57.2.

 The second grouping also underwent a major overhaul when both multiple aged ICF aged horse champion He’zzz A Wise Sky, along with Doctor Cruise and Holden Steady, were excused from racing by the stewards and that made much it easier for Fox Valley Ramiro to repeat his previous Preview win, prevailing Wednesday in an uninspiring time of 1:57.4.

 Aged Illinois trotters concluded the lengthy program with Marvelous Mystery (Curt Grummel) much the best in the first mare division in 1:57.4; Lolita (1:59.1) rather comfortably for Seekman, in the second mare confrontation, while the older trotting a fairs went to TVS Kosmac (Jerome Daniels) in 1:58.4 and, as expected, to Goomster (1:56.4) giving Seekman his seventh winning drive of the afternoon. Bates bagged five winners.