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York, PA --- The York County Fair, in the southcentral county of Pennsylvania which once was home to the Capital City of the United States of the same name, didn’t host any Presidents during its two days of harness racing on Monday and Tuesday. But as the third-to-last stop of the local fair circuit this year, it did crown two more divisional point standings champions, bringing the year’s total to three -- the first, of course, being the Princess of all North American freshmen.


Tropical Terror ran her remarkable record to 15-14-1-0 on Monday, “2-year-old day,” by capturing the faster of the two Pennsylvania Fair Sire Stakes divisions in 2:02.1. The campaigners of the Western Terror filly, Team Shaw -- driver Chris; Chris’s brother, trainer Jason; and Jason’s son, owner Mason -- may have enjoyed this one a little more, because their filly defeated her one conqueror, second-place finisher Keystone I Wish, although to the credit of the place horse she narrowed the other’s advantage from 11 lengths at the quarter to 2-1/2 at the wire.


Tropical Terror, the winningest freshman in all of North America, had clinched her divisional title, and the blanket in the stable’s colors presented at the fair banquet associated with the USTA District meeting (the Shaws’ will be their blue and white), three stops ago at Wattsburg.


But surprisingly, the second-winningest 2-year-old on the continent, the Nuclear Breeze gelding Nippy, has not yet clinched the colt section, despite posting his 12th win of the year, and eighth in succession, in 2:04, three races before Tropical Terror. And that’s because a 2-year-old with 11 victories, Marshmallow Pulse, is also a PA fair regular, and in fact won the fastest of the division’s three cuts with a 2:03 mile the race after Nippy.


Nippy and the Quik Pulse Mindale gelding Marshmallow Pulse are also members of the Team Shaw stronghouse. Among Tropical Terror, Nippy (15-12-3-0), and Marshmallow Pulse (14-11-3-0), the trio have an awesome record of 44-37-7-0 -- unheard-of consistency for freshmen, especially on the sometimes rough-n-tumble county fair circuit.


Among the three, they have bankrolled $90,081 this summer for the college scholarship fund of owner Mason Shaw -- which he won’t need until 2030, as he is currently “also a 2-year-old.”


The first of the two other horses to clinch a divisional point standings title raced in the very first contest of the meet -- Police Navidad, an altered freshman son of Muscle  Massive who assured his mathematical clinch in the division with his ninth seasonal triumph, putting him one off the North American victory lead among all 2-year-old squaregaiters. The gold and blue blanket will be going to trainer/driver Steve Schoeffel for owner/mom Virginia, owner/wife Kathy, and Lander Stables LLC.


The third already-assured blanket will be of dark green and white with black edging, as the 3-year-old Art Official gelding Mister Chaos clinched his crown by winning in 2:00.2 for trainer Bob Rougeaux III and D And P Racing LLC, with Chris Shaw the sulky deputy here. Ironically, that was not the fastest mile of the meet, as 15 minutes later the Real Artist gelding Ruffled Up won in even time for owner/trainer/driver Roger Hammer.


Mister Chaos is now poised to attempt to become something not achieved since the fair circuit point standings’ historical records were preserved starting in 2002: the first horse to win both his point standings blanket and the championship final at age two and three.


There are two more fair stops to make -- Gratz this weekend (Sept. 14-15) and Bloomsburg (Sept. 18-19) -- before the $200,000 Pennsylvania Fair Sire Stakes Championship Night at The Meadows on Saturday (Oct. 4).


The other horse with a chance to do the “double double,” the Western Terror filly La Fiesta, does currently have a slight lead in her point standings, but she’ll need her “A” game to handle a pacing miss who, along with Nippy, has the PaFSS’s longest current win skein at eight, TSM Soul Sister, a McArdle filly who also won at York for driver Todd Cummings, trainer Bob Krenitsky Jr., and owner/breeder Ted Tomson.