It’s that holiday time of the year with visions of sugar plums, candy canes and fruit cakes, but not a jelly apple in sight.

What did he say? A Jelly Apple? What’s that?

For the uninitiated, Jelly Apple is a trotting sire standing in Aroostook County who has dominated the Maine Standardbred Breeders Stakes for the past two years. And his is a story of the luck in horse racing and the ability to take a chance.

Jelly Apple progenies have whipped all entries in the Maine Sire Stakes and his bloodline is finally commanding serious attention and respect from breeders. He produces winners.

But he started from zero, not even a race mark.

“He had everything going against him when I bought him as a two year old,” said C. Paul Mullen of Easton, owner of the outstanding trotting sire.

“Duke Reed bought him for me at a Yonkers sale,” Mullen said, “and according to Reed, he had passed through the sales ring as a yearling for $60,000.”

Jelly Apple is by Speedy Somoli who was the son of the multiple record-holder, Speedy Crown, one of the trotting industry’s fastest and most prolific producers.

Although Mullen doesn’t say what he paid for Jelly Apple, it must have been a bargain price. When Mullen got his colt home, he had some bloodwork done on him, because the horse didn’t have any life and wouldn’t jog. “The colt had some serious problems. Not only would he not jog, he just couldn’t get the job done no matter what I tried,” Mullen said.

The veterinarian’s verdict revealed that the youngster suffered from muscle spasms and would never race again. Anyone in the horse business can relate to Mullen’s predictament. A young horse without a lifetime trotting mark who would never race again. What to do?.

After a few years of pasture rest, the decision was made to stand Jelly Apple at stud at the Mullen’s farm in Easton. “First, I did the wrong thing. We bred him to a lot of cheap mares just to get numbers. That didn’t help his reputation,” Mullen said.

But two years ago, Jelly Apple gained the recognition he so richly deserves. It is well known that Aroostook county horsemen don’t make the long trek to either Bangor or Scarborough with horses that are not ready to race. Two years ago, in mid-June at Bangor Raceway, Ray Ireland warmed up a beautiful looking, trotting filly named West Ridge Gossip. In the trot race that day, as the trotters thundered up the backside for the final time, closing in on the three-quarter mile pole, the young, black filly tipped out from the center of the pack and circled the field, winning by open lengths with any near competition.

That was the first serious glimpse of Jelly Apple offsprings. And there were more to come, all stakes graduates. Kenny Hafford had two or three good Jelly Apple trotters. In the mix were JKJ, Jim’s Delite, JJ’s Starburst, Westridge Norman and Westridge Ruth, just a few Jelly Apple winners. Mullen says this past breeding season, his stud was bred to better mares. “I had a mare from Canada with a 2:01 mark and the Tompkins boys here in Presque Isle bred with a mare who marked in 2:02,” Mullen said.

But by far, the best of the many Jelly Apple sired was a filly named Upsala Kestrel, who dominated both the 2-year-old and the 3-year-old MSBS trotting divisions during the past two years.

This is another good “luck-chance” story. Kestrel is owned by Ed Buck of Stockholm, and was the first horse he ever owned and the filly was born from a mare loaned to Buck. Through the MSBS 3-year-old finals at Scarborough Downs in September, Kestrel and regular driver, Gary Mosher, had earned more than $49,000 in stakes earnings, with 26 stakes wins over two years, and marked at 2:03.1.

But the sought-after, 2-year-old Jelly Apple colts and fillies aren’t available to buy for the 1996 MSBS competition. Almost everyone that has one wants to keep it. The numbers of 1996 eligibles are low and the MSBS purses will be high.

Todd Bradley of Presque Isle has one Jelly Apple he will put in the spring breeder’s sale, but that’s almost it in Maine. Jelly Apple popularity and winning ways will probably “up” his $500 stud fee this year, Mullen said.

“They don’t like to recognize him in the southern part of the state,” Mullen says with a grin, “but his bloodline beat the best of them this year and he will probably continue.” Sometimes you do hit it lucky in racing.

Have a happy holiday!

PACING BITS – The Maine Standardbred racing community was saddened this week with the passing of Sherman E. Clary, 58, of Augusta. A member of the Clary racing family, he was a horse owner, driver and trainer for 25 years. For almost a decade, Sherm had been a race starter in Maine and Massachusetts, starting when Bangor Raceway opened and finishing with at Fryeburg Fair. Clary died of congestive heart failure at Medical and Regional Office Center, Togus. Our condolences go out to his wife, Sharon, his son, Sherman Jr., and his daughter, Rebecca Lavalle.