Harness Horses With Local Connections Capture Titles

Ima Cheaten Girl and driver Cornelius Cavett prepare to return to the stable area, shortly after winning at Pana on Sunday. 

By KURT BECKER

PANA -- Several harness horses with local and area connections captured championship titles over Labor Day weekend, as the Illinois Big Ten Colt Stakes brought its 68th racing season to a close with a Sunday racing program at the Pana-Tri County Fair. 

Ima Cheaten Girl, owned and trained by Jacob Roedl of Edgewood, was the first champion to be crowned, winning the Big Ten event for two-year-old trotting fillies in 2:15.4 for driver Cornelius Cavett and clinching the Big Ten title. The filly has won two of her last three races. 

Roedl and Cavett teamed for another championship later in the day, when Aniemaybombay used a runner-up finish to claim Big Ten honors for two-year-old pacing fillies. Aniemaybombay is a homebred for the Roedl barn. 

Trainer-driver Darla (Martin) Lohman of Effingham also enjoyed a productive afternoon, winning two races for her clients and taking home three Big Ten titles. Aqua's Bud, owned by Larry Longnecker of Sumner and Lacy Longnecker-Motch of Bridgeport, won a division of the two-year-old colt and gelding trot, while Sage' N Fra, owned by Catherine Ritzel of St. Jacob, rallied down the stretch to win the three-year-old colt and gelding pace. Both finished the campaign as Big Ten champions, with Sage 'N Fra pacing a mile in 2:04.1 to rank as the fastest sophomore pacing colt or gelding on the circuit for 2021. 

Sage' N Fra was bred, raised, and sold as a yearling by Alvin Siebert of Effingham and Jon Becker of Altamont. 

In the two-year-old colt and gelding pace, a second-place finish by Spoken For gave the Lohman stable its third Big Ten champion. Owned by the H. Dean Debolt Estate of Iuka, Spoken For took the lead in the Big Ten standings on July 19 and never looked back, and he recorded the fastest mile of the summer for his division with a victory in 2:04.4 on August 3 at the Effingham County Fair. 

Kandi's Fortune, owned by Brian and Kandi Herzog of Beecher City, made it six Big Ten champions on the day for Effingham County, winning the three-year-old filly pace in 2:04.2. Jordan Patton had the winning drive, while his father, Freddie Patton Jr., was the winning trainer. 

The Effingham County Fair also took honors as host site for fastest mile of the year in four of the eight Big Ten categories, during a race meeting which took place during the first week of August. Derek and Clint Bowman serve as the fair's track-conditioning crew. 

The Illinois Big Ten Colt Stakes officially began recognizing season's champions in 1982. The standings are calculated on the basis of a points system which rewards top-five finishes, ranging from one point for a fifth-place effort to five points for a win.