Muscle Hill

Muscle Hill is a trotting stallion, out of super sire Muscles Yankee, who won a Breeders Crown race in 2008 and 2009. He is driven by Brian Sears and trained by Greg Peck.

Muscle Hill was purchased by Tom Pontone for $55,000 at the Harrisburg Yearling Sales in 2007.^[1] He showed great promise as a two-year-old winning the Peter Haughton Memorial and 2008 Breeders Crown Two Year Old Colt Trot. He went on to win $817,301 and eight of nine races and was named the United States 2-Year Old Colt Trotter of the Year.^[2]

In 2009 he went on to win all of his races as a three-year-old, including the Hambletonian, the Canadian Trotting Classic, the American-National, the World Trotting Derby, the Kentucky Futurity and the Breeders Crown. In The Hambletonian he won in 1:50.1 which was a stakes record and tied the fastest time for a trotter of any age at The Meadowlands.^[1] He won by six lengths, the largest winning margin in the The Hambletonian since Mack Lobell in 1987.^[3] At the end of 2009 he retired to stud with career prize money of $3,273,342, and having won the last 20 of the 21 races in which he competed.^[4] The $2,456,041 that he won in 2009 was a record for a single season for either a trotter or a pacer.^[2] He was voted United States Harness Horse of the Year for 2009, the first time a trotter had won the award for an undefeated season.^[3] He never came close to defeat in his twenty wins which were all by a margin of at least one length.^[3]

At stud his early foals have included Hambletonian winner Trixton and top filly Mission Brief.^[2]

In January 2016 it was announced that Muscle Hill would be inducted into the Living Horse Hall of Fame.^[5]

References