OP Celebrates 2009 All-Americans

Penny Candy and Count Ivan

Once again in 2009 the Orange Park Kennel Club was blessed with some very special greyhound racing around our racetrack and two of them were named to the AGTOA All-American Teams.

Our best greyhound in 2009 over 660 or 770 yards, Penny Candy, was back in the elite eight for the second year in a row, and our best sprinter, Count Ivan, finished 10th in voting and made the second team.

So it was a good excuse to throw a party. No really. For the third year in a row we held an All-American evening to celebrate our fantastic accomplishments of these tremendous greyhounds. And that was not all, we gave away over one-thousand T-Shirts and featured food, drink, and other specials throughout the racetrack. We had a great turn out and it was so nice to see the public come out and take pride in the greyhounds that are racing at the Orange Park Kennel Club.

Penny Candy really needs no introduction, but I'm going to give you a brief one anyways. She was an All-American in 2008 after just missing in two stakes finals and took the title of national win leader by winning forty-two races at Orange Park. In 2009 she upped the ante as she won 7 of her 8 stakes rounds and including the finals of the two stakes races that eluded her in 2008.

In the Orange Park Derby, Penny won three of the four rounds and in the final she jetted by her kennelmate in the stretch to get up for the win. The James J Patton Marathon Stakes was even more impressive. She won all the rounds and in the final, she was untouchable. No one was even close. She drove from the box to the early lead and left the field in her lurch. She won by seven full lengths and but a big explanation mark on her stakes efforts.

Overall Penny just missed the magic number of eighty wins for her career, she posted up seventy-six, but that number will not pigeonhole her career. Penny was so much more that just her wins. She was a champion who left everything she had on the racetrack in each and every start. In eighteen career stakes starts, she never finished out of the money and won thirteen times.

As Penny moves on to her new career as mom, she will be joyfully remembered by everyone her at the Orange Park Kennel Club for all of her efforts on the racetrack.

Congratulation head out to DQ and Sharon Williams, Trainer David Helton, and everyone else connected with this tremendous greyhound. She was one of a kind and one that you once get to witness every now and then. That is the reason that she will go down as one of the best, if not the best ever, over the added distances at the Orange Park Kennel Club.

Count Ivan should be a name that almost everyone that follows our circuit knows already, but if you don't, that's ok, I'll fill you in.

No greyhound in the country started off 2009 hotter than Count Ivan. Hot off his stakes win in the Jacksonville Juvenile in December of 2008, Ivan was ready to make a splash on the national scene and that is just what he did. Ivan won sixteen of his first nineteen races on the year, including a run of eleven wins in a row, three stakes rounds wins, and the finals of the 2009 Jacksonville Sprint Classic in a near record time of 30.19 seconds.

Ivan was not one trick pony, and continued to win races throughout the rest of the year and posted up three wins in a row to cruise into his second stakes final of the year in the 2009 edition of the Sunshine State Silver Cup. Bad luck followed him in that final round race though as he fell in the 1st turn and his dreams of back to back titles were dashed.

Ivan picked up right where he left off after that race and continued to run strong for the remainder of the 2009 campaign. Ivan finished off the year as the win leader for the racetrack as he recorded thirty-three wins in his fifty-seven starts. With these efforts he also reached another career milestone as he pushed his overall win totals over the fifty win mark.

Whether Ivan will come back and race is still under consideration, but if he is moving on to his new career, Ivan will be remembered as possibly the best greyhound at the racetrack during his time at the Orange Park Kennel Club. He was very versatile and could win from the front or from just off the pace. If he decided to hit the lid, he has track record type speed, and could leave fields at time by ten or more lengths. Ivan was a man amongst boys in certain times, and if came to run, the race was for place.

Congratulation to the B & J Kennel, Bill and Cathie Lambert, Owner Henry Howe, Trainer Tom Artzer, Chris Grieb, and everyone else connected with this great greyhound.

Penny Candy and Count Ivan were a big part of World Class Greyhound Racing at the Orange Park Kennel Club and both will be missed by patron, fan, employee, and kennel personal alike.

Here's to success in the future and thanks for giving us the privilege of watching you run.