Ohio Sires Stakes Opens 50th Season

Pet Project, Tom Largo Among Early Winners

By Wes Mayberry

This year marks the golden anniversary of the Ohio Sires Stakes. For some, it’s a time to celebrate the memories and glory from the past 50 years. For others, the focus is on what lies ahead. That’s the case for the field of 2026 OSS competitors as they began their quest toward a championship on May 2 at Miami Valley Raceway. Pet Project and Tom Largo were among the victors that day, and their connections hoped that was the start of more success to come in this milestone season of the OSS.

Pet Project

Coming off a strong 2025 campaign, Pet Project proved he could again be a top contender in the OSS as a sophomore with his win in the opening leg. The Pet Rock gelded pacer raced side by side with Backninebar down the final stretch and took the win by a neck in 1:53.1.

“That was really exciting,” says trainer Kim Dailey. “(Backninebar driver) Chris (Page) tried to keep us locked in, but we broke loose and got by him.”

Dailey, of Mechanicsburg, Ohio, co-owns Pet Project with Jr Stable, of Orient, Ohio, and co-bred the horse with two other Ohio connections — Jerry Zosel, of Columbus, and Kathy Ratcliff, of Orient. She’s been connected with Pet Project from the very beginning and has been impressed every step of the way. Early on, though, she saw no signs of the racehorse he would become.

“Going into his 2-year-old season, he was just an OK horse — nothing outstanding,” she says. “He did what he had to do but didn’t really show us anything until he went to the first qualifier.”

He won that qualifier at Eldorado Scioto Downs and went on to be one of the top freshman colt pacers in the OSS. He followed a third-place finish in the opening leg with a win in the Ohio State Fair Stake that told Dailey just how talented of a racehorse she had.

“When he won the state fair, I thought, ‘Holy moley, what do I have here?’” she remembers. “I wasn’t expecting anything like that.”

That was the start of four consecutive victories for Pet Project, as he proceeded to add three OSS wins to his ledger.

“He just shined,” Dailey says.

After a fourth-place finish in the final leg of the OSS, Pet Project entered the Scarlet Championship as the points leader among 2-year-old colt pacers. A fifth-place finish in that race didn’t dampen Dailey’s impression of the horse’s freshman season. She says her late husband, Ohio Harness Racing Hall of Famer James “Bill” Dailey, trained many great horses, and it was exciting to have one of her own.

“I couldn’t have asked for a better year,” she says. “I’m thrilled to have a horse like that in my barn.”

Pet Project has good pedigree, as his dam, Igottafeelinfran, was one of the talented horses trained by Bill Dailey. She won the Ohio Triple Crown as a 3-year-old in 2013 and went on to win OSS Veterans Championships in 2014 and 2015 en route to finishing with 29 career victories and earnings of $569,650. As he set out to live up to those standards, Pet Project finished his 2-year-old campaign with earnings of $128,700 in eight starts. Dailey credits driver Trevor Smith as instrumental to that success.

“I like Trevor’s style of driving,” she says. “He takes care of the horse — he doesn’t ask any more of him than what he wants to give — and they get along great.”

Smith, who has driven Pet Project in all 10 career starts, is just as complimentary of both Dailey and the horse.

“What stands out about him is how easy he is to drive. Kim did a great job training him down,” Smith said of Pet Project during his freshman season. “He respects the driver and has the heart that you always want to see in a horse, which makes my job a hundred times easier to be able to do what I want to do in certain situations. When it gets tough, some horses will step down from the pressure, but he does nothing but step up to the plate and knows how to get the job done.”

Affectionately known as “Rocky,” Pet Project entered 2026 on track to continue the success he had as a freshman. But a 10th-place finish in an overnight race at Miami Valley on April 21 left Dailey leery of how he would fare against OSS competition two weeks later.

“I didn’t like the way he performed that day,” she says.

But he bounced back in spectacular fashion. And if that opening-leg win is any indication, the 50th season of the OSS could turn out to be extra special for Dailey.

“The 3-year-old colt final was the only one out of the eight divisions that my late husband never won, so winning that would mean a lot to me,” she says. “That would be something if we could pull it off.”

Tom Largo

As his name suggests, Tom Largo stands out for his size.

“He’s a big horse,” trainer Scott Cox says.

But as the OSS kicked off its 50th season on May 2, the 3-year-old gelded trotter also made an impression with his on-track performance.

“It was a nice mile for him,” Cox says.

Cox isn’t one to boast, even if the horse may have been worthy of it courtesy of a gate-to-wire win in his division of the opening leg of the OSS. Tom Largo finished three lengths ahead of second-place Max The Mighty, tripping the wire in a lifetime-best 1:54.4. Cox concedes that a fortunate draw — 2026 Hackett Memorial winner Rose Run Banker won the other division of sophomore colt trotters in 1:53.3 — was helpful. But Tom Largo still had to go out and perform, and he did just that.

“I didn’t know how the race would go, but he was able to control it,” Cox says.

As he was for the majority of Tom Largo’s starts in 2025, Chris Lems was in the sulky for the victory that day.

“He’s been driving for me for a while,” Cox says. “He’s easy to communicate with, which helps because we can change things along the way.”

Tom Largo entered that race as the betting favorite, and for good reason. The son of Long Tom out of Smith Hall had a standout freshman campaign with five wins and one second and earnings of $125,400 in nine starts. That included victories in the Ohio State Fair Stake, two legs of the Buckeye Stallion Series, and the BSS Final. But there remained some uncertainty surrounding his ability to compete in the upper-echelon OSS after recording two fourth-places and a fifth-place finish in the three legs he competed in last season.

“His last fourth-place finish in the Sires Stakes was actually a really good mile, but he has to step it up more this year because there are some really good trotters out there,” Cox says.

Last year’s runner-up finish in the OSS consolation final, known as the Gray Championship, was perhaps indicative of what Tom Largo would be capable of as a sophomore. Further growth and improvements over the winter helped spur him to victory in his first OSS start in 2026.

“He’s developed a little bit of speed out of the gate, which gets him in better position,” Cox says.

Cox noticed Tom Largo had this type of potential not long after he started working with him and praises the horse for his “pretty laid back” demeanor.

“He trained down well and was solid as could be all along,” he says.

Tom Largo is a horse with many Ohio connections — Cox, of Streetsboro, breeder Midland Acres, of Bloomingburg, and owners Jughead Stables and Robert Kubiak, of Strongsville, and G Peters, of Akron — and is looking to make his mark in this golden anniversary season of the OSS. But with just one leg in the books, Cox was cautious not to look too far ahead.

“I just try to stay humble,” he says. “The hard part now is keeping him sound and healthy. We have to go clear to September, so it’s a long season. But if we can improve a little bit each time out, then maybe we’ll have a shot at the end.”

This story appeared in the May 2026 issue of The Buckeye Harness Horseman magazine.