Ironwood, MI — Welcome to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, you’re just about as far north as you go. Tucked away at a remote little fairgrounds sits an old white wooden grandstand overlooking a clear blue sky, a picturesque wooded scene, and a red clay racetrack. Every summer, for the past 127 years, the stands are filled with generations of fans as the tradition of harness racing continues year after year at the Gogebic County Fairgrounds in Ironwood, Mich.

The land was given to Gogebic County by the Curry family in the late 1890s with the hope that harness racing would always be the staple attraction of the fair. Even through the depression, world wars, and other times of hardship harness racing continued to be something the people of northern Michigan could always look forward to every year.

The track was, at one time, a year-round training facility for a handful of northern racing stables and has hosted multiple Michigan Sire Stakes events. Multiple track records have been set and broken by such champions as Malcolm J, Bakersfield Glenn, Tattler’s Jet, and Crafty Sailor, just to name a few that have dusted their fetlocks with the red clay of Ironwood’s famous oval.

In 2015, the New Zealand horse, Derek Bromac N, set a record as the oldest winning Standardbred in the country and the people in the old, white wooden grandstand were on their feet as he crossed the finish line.

This year, a new record will be witnessed as the East Coast native Stormin Rustler will take his place behind the starting gate for the 400th race of his 14-year career. One of the oldest horses in the country still racing, the 15-year-old gelding has visited the winner’s circle 54 times. The son of Rustler Hanover out of the Dragon’s Lair mare Witch’s Lair recently retired from pari-mutuel racing at New Jersey’s Freehold Raceway before coming to the Wisconsin/Michigan fair circuit and will be one of the fastest Standardbreds to ever set foot in Gogebic County. Stormin Rustler has toured 20 different racetracks throughout the United States and Canada and boasts a lifetime mark of 1:50.4 at 10 years old with earnings of $496,227 and and a nine-year winning streak at The Meadowlands.

As if this iron horse’s story couldn’t get any better, Stormin Rustler has a retirement farm waiting for him when he decides to hang up his harness.