Hot Hitter (foaled 1976), a bay Standardbred Champion racehorse, won two of the Pacing Triple Crown races in 1979 while on his way to setting a single-season earnings record of $826,542 for a harness horse.
On June 30, 1979, Happy Motoring nipped Hot Hitter at the wire in the first leg of the Triple Crown series, the Cane Pace at Yonkers Raceway.
[3] On September 20 at County Fairgrounds in Delaware, Ohio, though, Hot Hitter soundly beat Happy Motoring in the Little Brown Jug, the second leg of the Triple Crown and North America's most prestigious harness race for pacers.
[5] The Prix d'Été, another of the big wins of Hot Hitter's career, took place August 26, 1979, at Blue Bonnets Raceway in Montréal, Québec.
He won both heats, on a muddy track, in the process defeating Sonsam, who had set a world record for a one-mile oval in winning the July 19 Meadowlands Pace and was widely seen as invincible.