by Charlene Sharpe, USTA Web Newsroom Senior Correspondent

Charlene Sharpe

Dover, DE — It takes more than just luck to win 11 races in a row.

Eleven races — most of them from the eight hole — and against Open company at that.

Giddy Up Lucky, a 5-year-old son of Camluck, recently racked up his 11th consecutive win in the Preferred Pace at Dover Downs. The gelding is set to end the year — his best ever — with earnings of $312,615 and a record of 14-6-2 from 32 starts.

“He’s always shown signs of being good,” trainer Josh Green said. “He just got on a roll and got brave.”

And quite a roll it was, beginning back in September with an impressive 5-3/4 length win in 1:52.2 in a conditioned race at Yonkers Raceway. The move up to Open competition the next week did not phase Giddy Up Lucky, who crossed the wire first by a comfortable four length margin in 1:51.4. The pacer has not let a horse get by him since, winning six times in all at Yonkers before facing the competition in his home state of Delaware, where he defeated Open pacers by more than seven lengths in a 1:51.1 win at Harrington Raceway. Four wins, the fastest in a new lifetime mark of 1:49.1, followed at Dover Downs.

Fotowon photo

Giddy Up Lucky has not lost a race since August, making 11 straight trips to the winner’s circle.

His connections say he has finally turned out to be the horse they thought he would be when they purchased him in 2009. While last year’s record of 36-9-4-10 and earnings of $205,938 are nothing to scoff at, owner David Rovine says the horse did not have the drive he’s had this year.

“We always thought he was going to be a nice horse,” Rovine said, “but he did not have a ‘beat ’em’ personality. He’s continued to develop though and it’s been great watching him mature.”

Green says the horse, in spite of his 32 lifetime wins and $667,605 bankroll, can be lazy at times. The key to Giddy Up Lucky’s recent success, he believes, was the change to an open bridle and a few initial wins that bravened him up.

“We put the open bridle on him and that changed him,” Green said. “That’s rare for a lazy horse but it worked on him.”

It made enough of a difference that owners Rovine and Larry Baron, who had entered Giddy Up Lucky in a sale this fall, decided to hang on to him.

“We decided he was getting better and better,” Rovine said.

The horse has provided Rovine, who himself was a leading trainer at the Meadowlands 20 years ago, with an exciting return to harness racing. The Florida theater manager does not regret renewing his involvement in horses three years ago.

“It’s great fun to be back into the sport,” said Rovine, who now owns four horses.

As a former trainer who knows the rarity of an 11-race win streak — especially at the Open level — he appreciates the incredible success of Giddy Up Lucky and credits that to the work of Green and the horse’s regular driver Eric Goodell.

Green, who first noticed the horse two years ago, is just glad he kept pursuing the pacer, as is Rovine.

“We bought him to be a nice horse,” Rovine said. “When you get what you pay for — and more — it’s a rare thing. It’s been terrific.”

He says Giddy Up Lucky, after 32 starts this year, has earned some time off. Green says the horse will be turned out for a few weeks and in the new year will be pointed toward the George Morton Levy Memorial Pacing Series at Yonkers.