Manzi knows significance of Cane Pace to a driver
Freehold driver is
former winner of
Triple Crown race
Cat Manzi
It’s the majors, stupid. That is the continual mantra in tennis and golf, the individual sports, where players are judged by the major tournaments. You’re not a great player if you haven’t won at least one of the big ones.
In tennis, it’s Wimbledon and the French, United States and Australian opens. To be considered a great tennis player, you have to win one of the Big Four or Grand Slam events during your career, and all-time greatness is measured by how many of them you collect.
It’s the same in golf, where it’s the British and U.S. Open, the Masters and the Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) tournaments that make up the majors. Again, you have to win one to be a great player, and the 18 professional majors won by Jack Nicklaus is the standard that everyone is measured against.
Poor Phil Mickelson has to carry the burden at every major as the "best player to have never won a major." It may not always be fair, but the perception is based on reality, and the perception is that you have to win one of the Big Ones.
In its own way, harness racing has its majors, the Triple Crown events for trotting and pacing.
For pacing, it’s the Cane Pace, the Little Brown Jug and the Messenger Stakes that make up the trio, while for trotting it’s the Hambletonian, the Kentucky Futurity and the Yonkers Trot.
Horses like Niatross, Bret Hanover and Nevele Pride made their reputations as legends of the sport by winning the Triple Crown.
But do drivers earn the same lofty status for winning these races? Are they judged by the Triple Crown races as golfers and tennis players are to their sport’s majors? Can a Triple Crown race make a difference in a career?
Certainly Hall of Famers like Stanley Dancer, the late Billy Haughton and John Campbell helped their careers and reputations with multiple wins in the Triple Crown events.
On Saturday, Freehold Raceway is hosting the 47th running of the Cane Pace, the first leg of pacing’s Triple Crown, and Freehold Raceway driver Cat Manzi, for one, knows what it means to a driver.
Manzi has won more than 9,000 races in his brilliant career with 14 driving titles at Freehold Raceway, and he is a 2001 nominee for the Harness Hall of Fame. On his résumé are wins in the 1996 Cane Pace with Scoot To Power at Yonkers Raceway (the Cane moved to Freehold Raceway, beginning in 1998) and the 1994 Yonkers Trot with Bullville Victory. Although he drives thousands of races a year, and always to win, Manzi knows there is something different about a Triple Crown race.
"It’s one of the races you’d like to say you’ve won," the veteran reinsman said of the Cane Pace. "It has a reputation. It’s nice winning any of those (Triple Crown) races.
"I don’t feel any different about myself as a driver having won the Cane, but it’s nice to have won a race that is special," he added.
Manzi remembers his win well with Scoot To Power, who was one of the race’s longer shots.
"I was sitting on the rail in fourth place and would have to split the horses to win," he recalled.
Manzi did just that, piloting Scoot To Power through traffic to the win in 1:55.1.
"I was just looking to get a place," he added. "Winning the race was great, overwhelming."
Having driven in the Hambletonian, the Jug, Cane and Yonkers Trot, Manzi knows these events have a special quality all to themselves.
"There’s no question how exciting it is when you are driving a horse that you know you have a chance to win with in those races," he pointed out.
Manzi can sympathize with Mickelson and other athletes who are winners yet haven’t won a "big one" yet.
"It’s something that people outside of the sport look at," he pointed out. "I still think that Mickelson is a great golfer. It’s something that you have to deal with. That’s why it is special when you can win a race like the Cane."
Knowing how special it is to win a Triple Crown race, Manzi will have the opportunity to experience it again on Saturday when he drives Keen Mind in the Cane final. Manzi used a 28.2 last quarter in Saturday’s Cane Pace elimination to grab the fourth and final quality spot for the final.
With a quarter mile to go, Keen Mind was running sixth, but Manzi got him up to get fourth at the line and secured himself a drive in the final on his home track.

