Page McKenney named PA-bred horse of the year
Photo by Laurie Asseo.
Staff report
The honors continue to pile up for Page McKenney, who has been named 2015 Pennsylvania-bred Horse of the Year by the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association.
The chestnut Eavesdropper gelding won five of 10 starts in 2015 and placed in the other five, generating earnings of $589,900. All 10 of his starts came in stakes company, and three of the placings — thirds in the Grade 2 Charles Town Classic and Grade 3 Prairie Meadows Cornhusker Handicap and a second in the Grade 3 Pimlico Special — came in graded events.
That consistency allowed Page McKenney to earn the Horse of the Year nod over 2015 graded winners Dame Dorothy and Favorite Tale.
With two additional 2016 victories, including his first graded win, in the Grade 3 General George, Page McKenney has now won 16 of 43 career starts and earned $1,171,978.
He was bred in Pennsylvania by Dr. James Bryant and his wife, Linda Davis, and the couple named him for Davis’s Aunt Page, who had passed away shortly before Page’s birth. By Eavesdropper, he is out of the Yarrow Brae mare Winning Grace.
Racing for trainer Jasmine Napravnik in the colors of Bryant and Davis’s Jalin Stable, Page McKenney took 13 tries to break his maiden, finally doing so on the grass at Colonial Downs in June 2013. He was claimed out of his very next start and ended up in the barn of Mary Eppler, training for Adam Staple. Staple permitted Jalin to buy back into the horse, a 10 percent stake.
And virtually since then, all Page McKenney has done is run good races. He’s only been out of the money once in his last 24 starts.
Last month, Page McKenney also was named Maryland-based Horse of the Year by the Maryland Racing Media Association.
