By Wes Mayberry
Jailhouse Pearl’s list of achievements is impressive. An Ohio Fairs Championship winner as a freshman, she went on to become an Ohio Sires Stakes champion and the Ohio 3-Year-Old Filly Trotter of the Year last season. Now she’s looking to add an OSS Veteran Championship to her resume.
Jailhouse Pearl, a homebred for Casey Clemens, of Malta, Ohio, is one of eight horses in the $100,000 OSS Veteran Championship for mare trotters on Sunday (Oct. 4) at Northfield Park Racino. Despite her past success, the 4-year-old Long Tom mare out of Jailhouse Broad opened with 12-1 odds after drawing the far outside post.
“Any time you get the eight hole at Northfield, you just shake your head. Everything just has to work out right, and up at Northfield, it hardly ever does,” says trainer Eric Nesselroad. “She’s never been 12-1 on the morning line, but that’s just because of the eight hole.”
With Luke Hanners in the sulky, Jailhouse Pearl will look to overcome the unfavorable post position against a talented field of competitors, including early 8-5 favorite Abbey D (Dan Noble) and 3-1 co-second choices Sugar Instead (Chris Page) and Jurassic Hattie (Brett Miller).
“She’ll race hard and will be coming on at the end of it,” Nesselroad says.
While Nesselroad has plenty of confidence in her now, that wasn’t always the case. In fact, she proved quite frustrating to work with as a 2-year-old.
“She wouldn’t do anything as a 2-year-old — she wouldn’t go around the track, and she wouldn’t train. I’d train her, and I’d have bags on my whip just to shake it to try to get her to do something,” Nesselroad says. “When stake time came, I told the owner, ‘This horse isn’t going to do any good. She won’t give us anything.’ But we kept going.”
That persistence ended up paying off, as Jailhouse Pearl piled up 10 wins and five seconds in 15 starts, most of which came at Ohio fair tracks. She was a runner-up in a leg of the Buckeye Stallion Series at Northfield and capped the season by winning the Ohio Fairs Championship for freshman filly trotters.
“We finally got her ready to race, and she went to the county fairs and learned how to be a racehorse,” Nesselroad remembers. “She’s always loved to pass horses. That’s her game — she loves to have a target, and she’ll go after it.”
Jailhouse Pearl banked $63,377 that year, and her performances gave her connections a level of confidence that she could develop into something greater. Clemens and Nesselroad remained only cautiously optimistic, believing her ceiling to be the Buckeye Stallion Series. But after a second-place finish in the first leg of the BSS, they decided to move her up to the OSS. She delivered.
“Danny Noble was parked every step of the mile, and she never quit,” Nesselroad says.
She won that OSS race by a length in 1:54.4 and went on to win the $300,000 OSS Scarlet Championship at Dayton Raceway with Austin Hanners in the sulky. But there was still more to come, as she was later named Ohio’s 3-Year-Old Filly Trotter of the Year for 2025. Not bad for a horse that refused to cooperate in training just one year prior.
“We put her in the Sires Stakes, and she just took off, and the rest is history,” Nesselroad says. “She has a big heart and takes care of herself every day. She’s not hard to deal with. She’s not the prettiest horse or the biggest horse, but she has the heart of a champion.”
Jailhouse Pearl finished her sophomore campaign with a 5-5-2 record in 14 starts, banking $309,317. Nesselroad was proud to have such an accomplished horse in his stable.
“I’ve been doing this for over 35 years, and to get one like that and have everything just click as the year went along and be good at the right time was amazing,” he says.
As a 4-year-old this year, Jailhouse Pearl has compiled a 4-4-4 record with $69,547 in earnings from 16 starts despite some bad luck in post-position draws. She has a pair of victories in Open II races at Eldorado Scioto Downs and finished third in the Ohio Breeders Championship at Delaware. But perhaps her biggest season highlight was equaling the track record for 4-year-old trotting mares at Scioto Downs on July 3, winning in 1:51.2 to match Jurassic Hattie’s mark from 2025.
“That was a big achievement for her,” Nesselroad says. “Every time she races, we just shake our heads. If you look at her, you wouldn’t think she should be that good. But when she races, she puts her heart out there.”
Miller was in the bike for that achievement, but he’ll be driving Jurassic Hattie on Sunday as Jailhouse Pearl looks to add to an already impressive resume. A victory in the OSS Veteran Championship would be the cherry on top of an already successful career.
“It’d be another great achievement for her,” Nesselroad says.
A brief look at each of the other three $100,000 divisions of the OSS Veteran Championships is below. First-race post time for Sunday’s 15-race card at Northfield is 6 p.m.
Veteran Mare Pace
Odds On Chesapeake (L. Hanners), the 2025 Ohio 3-Year-Old Filly Pacer of the Year, opened as the 2-1 favorite after drawing post five. The Virgil Morgan Jr. trainee has hit the board in nine of 15 seasonal starts, earning $163,945. Hey Hey Mama (Aaron Merriman) is the 3-1 second choice and will leave from the rail.
Veteran Horse & Gelding Trot
Hung Over (Noble) is the early 6-5 favorite and will leave from post five. Trained by Bob Stewart, he has a 1-2-2 mark in 11 seasonal starts. Caviar Gold (Merriman), the 3-1 second choice on the morning line, drew the rail.
Veteran Horse & Gelding Pace
Paris’s Dragon (Page) is the 2-1 morning-line favorite after drawing the rail. The Ron Burke trainee has a 4-4-2 record in 19 seasonal starts. Clever Cody (Luke Ebersole) and Charlie May (Noble) opened as co-second choices at 4-1 and will leave side by side from posts two and three, respectively.
Photo Credit: Conrad Photo