Chris Englehart is En Fuego

Quick, who is the hottest trainer in the world right now? If you have not yet heard of trainer Chris Englehart, you have missed out on bunches of winners recently at the Big A.  Yesterday, he ran his consecutive winning streak at Aqueduct to seven, as Isn’t She Grand and Furhlang won in consecutive races.  Englehart, began his amazing streak with a 3 for 3 afternoon on Thursday, and followed that up with one winner on both Friday and Saturday. The modern day record for consecutive winners at NYRA tracks is believed to be eight, and held by a handful of trainers in the 70’s and 80’s.  The King of Finger Lakes trainers is now 9 for 11 at the Aqueduct Winter meet. 
 
A native of Canandaigua, New York, Englehart took out his training license as a teenager in 1973, and has been training ever since.  A fixture atop the trainer standings at the small upstate New York oval, in 2010, he won his eighth consecutive leading trainer title at Finger Lakes, and his tenth overall.  Besides his ten training titles, Chris is probably best known as the trainer of the top sprinter, Frattare, who became the first locally-based horse to take home the Grade 3 Finger Lakes Breeders’ Cup Sprint back in 1989.  Racing is a family business for the Engleharts, as his brother, Steve, and his son, Jeremiah, also train horses in the region. 
 
Englehart’s recent winning streak comes on the heels of a very difficult time.  In November, he lost four-year-old filly, She’s Smokin Hot, who was euthanized after tests revealed she had equine herpesvirus, a contagious viral disease that leads to respiratory disease and sometimes neurological disease.   Besides losing the filly, Englehart could not run his horses, enduring a three-week quarantine at his barns at Finger Lakes and Belmont Park as well as his farm in Shortsville, New York to prevent the spreading of the disease.  He has come back with a vengence.
 
Today and Tomorrow are dark days at Aqueduct, but Englehart will be back on Wednesday to keep the streak rolling.  He has entered the veteran Who’s the Cowboy in Wednesday’s 5th race, a $35,000 claiming race at six furlongs.  It will be a six-day turnaround for the nine-year-old gelding, who has won 16 times in his career.  Who’s the Cowboy won last Thursday by more than five lengths at odds of 8-1.  The way it has been going for Englehart lately, you would have to love Who’s the Cowboy’s chances to win another.  That would mean Thursday’s 1st race could be the record breaker, as he has Crafty Mark in the day’s opener.  Records are made to be broken.  Good luck Chris Englehart.

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