by Charlene Sharpe, USTA Web Newsroom Senior Correspondent

Charlene Sharpe

Seaford, DE — A nightmare. That’s the word owner/trainer Leigh Raymer used to describe trotter I Got Spunk as a yearling.

Throughout the first few months of learning to pull a cart, the filly would, with no warning, throw herself to the ground and begin an alarmed, high pitched whinny.

“One day she took down seven of us,” Raymer said. “She’d throw herself down and scream. She’s the hardest yearling we’ve ever broken.”

You wouldn’t know it now.

The Super Punk-Gogetitdun filly goes behind the gate Monday night (April 6) at Dover Downs as the 8-5 morning line favorite in the $100,000 Delaware Standardbred Breeders Fund final for 3-year-old trotting fillies.

Foto Won photo

I Got Spunk has won five of 11 lifetime starts, with earnings of $79,205.

Raymer, who trains a stable of Standardbreds with her husband Tyler, can now laugh as she recalls the filly’s early antics.

“She’s a complete professional now,” she said. “She seems to really like racing.”

Raymer picked out the aptly named I Got Spunk at Chick’s Sale in 2013. She thought the relatively small filly with a long body looked like a good prospect.

“We go for the smaller build,” she said. “They grow into nice looking horses and you don’t deal with colt soreness as much.”

Bidding on the filly didn’t meet the seller’s minimum price, but Raymer didn’t give up and she was able to buy I Got Spunk after the sale.

She had little idea what she was getting into.

Though the filly showed her tendency to throw herself early on in the breaking process, she didn’t grow out of it as quickly as most. The fits were sporadic and violent — and went on for months. Just when Raymer thought I Got Spunk might have finally calmed down, she’d hear the filly’s screams and look out on the track to see her on the ground and Tyler waiting for help.

Though the fits finally stopped, I Got Spunk continued to be a source of frustration. The filly simply would not trot. Eventually the Raymers decided to give her some time off in the field. That’s when they realized they couldn’t catch her. It took two days in the field and a group of people to get I Got Spunk back into the barn.

Determined to turn the filly out, the Raymers next tried putting her out and leaving a lead rope attached to her halter. When that didn’t work, they put a lead shank with a chain over her nose and left that on her. That, Raymer says, is what finally taught her to trot.

“She’d run and step on the rope,” she said. “She realized if she just trotted she could trot around it.”

That appeared to be the turning point for the filly, who was able to qualify in September of 2014 — with a modified chain attached to her caveson with Velcro and hooked to a tie down.

She was timed in 2:00 at The Red Mile (in her third qualifier) and came home to Delaware to compete in the DSBF events for 2-year-olds. Though she didn’t make the $100,000 final at Harrington Raceway, she won the consolation in 2:03 for driver Corey Callahan.

In the second round of stakes at Dover, a wins and a second in the elimination legs earned her a spot in the $100,000 race on Nov. 24. She finished second by a neck to Penny Paratrooper, trotting in a lifetime best 1:58.2.

“She’s honest,” Raymer said. “She really tries.”

She heads into Monday night’s final with a record of three wins from five starts this year. She won both of her eliminations, the first in 1:58.1 and the second in 1:57.2.

Regardless of what happens Monday night, Raymer says she’s already promised I Got Spunk an eventual future as a broodmare.

“We’re very pleased with her,” she said, adding that getting the filly to the races had been a complete team effort. “If we didn’t have the barn help we have and Tyler wasn’t such a tinker I don’t know that she’d be quite the horse she is. It took a village.”