Pegster’s “Extra Oomph” Nets Emotional Win * The Racing Biz

The afternoon of July 23 in Delaware Park was a dream come true for the Fahrney family.

Tom Fahrney was there to encourage 3-year-old Merrieveeulen Pegster to not one but two people close to his heart while she ran Gamely to win the fourth race and break her girl.

“We were all very emotional,” he recalls.

Fahrney grew up in Hagersstown, Maryland and remembers his father to the little race track – his “hero” in racing, baseball and life as a whole. About 15 years ago he went from fan to owner, where he first purchased in small quantities of national syndicates and then collaborated in a larger capacity at various mid-atlantic runners.

The horses of Fahrney are introduced under the name Ram Racing Stable, in honor of the rams of his Alma Mater, Virginia Commonwealth University. On the racing day you see his side of VCU black-gold.

“I even asked for permission from the athletic department to use [the mascot]”Says Fahrney. Permission granted.

After his retirement in 2016, he and his wife bought a farm in Rappahannock County in Noord -Virginia. There he would raise young horses that he had bought, to sell them later, or to keep them to race. One of these Pinhooks was a Maryland-Foked Merrieveeulen from Speightster, picked up by Fahrney as a teat in 2022.

The next autumn he went for sale in the Merrievefeulen at the Fasig-Pipon Midlantic Yearling Sale with a reserve of $ 10,000 and the hammer fell to $ 9k.

“It wasn’t a good sale for me,” Fahrney recalls. (His other entry could also not pay with just a thousand dollars.) However, he was able to sell the other yearling privately later, so he helped the Speightster Merrieveeulen to race.

Her trainer would be Danielle Hodsdon, a former assistant of the renowned conditioner Jonathan Sheppard who knew Fahrney through his niece. He sent Pegster to Fair Hill for her racing education – the perfect environment for her, he believes.

“She was immature and had some growing up,” he says. “Being able to get out, go on the paths – that was great for her.”

All those logistics aside, the mandriffen still needed a name. Fahrney had previously named horses after other family members, and here came a chance to kill two birds with one stone. You see, the Fahrney family has a few herring – his mother and his wife.

After playing with different elements of the name, he finally decided to just apply the star of Sire Speight star to “PEG”, and Pegster was thus conceived.

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However, the filly started a slow start on the track. Fahrney was on the beach, he remembers when Pegster made her debut and was relieved when his horse showed very little, back behind the field to end the last of six, 27 ½ lengths behind the winner.

“Oh no,” he thought. “This horse that I named after my mother and my wife will not be a good one.”

After two more matte races, Fahrney was not sure of the viability of the marey as a racing horse. Money was tight; Perhaps it was time to send her to Charles Town for simpler company and lower costs.

But Hodsdon convinced Fahrney that there was still something in Pegster, and that it was time to try something else. A surface switch can do for her, or perhaps more distance. What about trying both?

After he had turned out to be before the winter, Pegster 2025 started on the grass and brought a strong performance in third place: her best race to date. And while her next start saw her fourth ending, she was less than a length outside the top three, and it seemed as if she finally turned a corner. With that in mind they came in for a late July race in Delaware Park -a mile and a sixteenth peat event for first claimants.

The plan was that Pegster sat just outside the pace, but it didn’t go all the way to plan and she ended up during the middle. Jockey JG Torrealba, however, arranged her and she unleashed “a great turn” that completed the distant turn, took the lead and kept all newcomers to finally break her girl.

The victory was an exciting experience for Fahrney and his family. Unfortunately, only one of the two pegs was by the hand for the victory of the Merrieveeulen, while Fahrney’s mother died last October.

That said, he thinks she was watching that day too. After the race he called his father, whose 95th birthday was in three days to deliver the happy news.

“We think Mama gave her a little extra ‘Oomph’ in the play as a birthday gift for my father,” he says.

The Circle photo of the winner is equipped with a victorious Pegster, who is black-gold and the jubilant faces of the horses. Fahrney has directed his index finger to heaven, as a tribute to the woman whose name De Merrieveeulen bears:

“People think I am holding a number one sign,” he says. “But I really point to my mother in heaven.”