by Rich Fisher, USTA Web Newsroom Senior Correspondent

Rich Fisher

Trenton, NJ — The way veteran driver Mark MacDonald figures it, any horse can perform well when everything goes its way.

Since that rarely happens, MacDonald will take a horse that knows how to get things done when everything goes wrong.

He has just such a prize in 6-year-old male trotter Obrigado, who drew post No. 1 for Saturday’s (July 2) $180,000 Cleveland Trotting Classic at Northfield Park and is the 3-1 second choice on the morning line behind 2014 Trotter of the Year Shake It Cerry.

In last year’s inaugural Cleveland Trotting Classic, MacDonald and Obrigado were challenging for the lead when Obrigado went off stride briefly as he hit the opening quarter-mile in :26.3. Obrigado was stuck on the outside until near the midway point, when he found room on the pylons in third place.

USTA/Ken Weingartner photo

Obrigado has won 37 times in his career with more than $1 million in earnings.

Obrigado remained inside for only a few moments before moving back to the outside to follow the first-over cover of DW’s NY Yank. After DW’s NY Yank cleared to the lead, Obrigado was left first over around the final turn. Obrigado got the lead in the stretch but was unable to hold off Daylon Magician, who won by a head in an all-age track-record-equaling 1:53.2.

“That was just insane,” MacDonald said. “Oh, just horrible. And he still got beat in a photo.”

It was the kind of effort that has come to define Obrigado.

“Those are the ones that really showed me how tough he was,” MacDonald said. “It’s kind of hard to tell how good a horse is and get a gauge on them when everything goes your way. But sometimes trips don’t work out. When everything goes against you and they still win; or the trip doesn’t work out or something happens in the race or you’re in a bad spot and the horse overcomes it, that’s when you really know that you’re driving a good horse. And he can overcome anything.”

Trained and part-owned by Paul Kelley, Obrigado topped the $1 million career earnings mark with a third-place finish in the Cutler Memorial on June 24 at the Meadowlands. He has won 37 of 68 lifetime races and inherited MacDonald as his regular driver in 2015.

“I was driving for Paul in the New York Sire Stakes a little bit and he was really high on that trotter, he thought he had a good 4-year-old year and wanted me to drive him,” MacDonald said. “He’d kind of been protecting him and letting the horse develop and mature and was racing him at Saratoga.

“He thought he was a top open trotter and wanted me to drive him a little bit. It kind of worked out. I never really got to drive him much (in 2014). We came back in 2015 and I qualified him a couple times. He started him right at Yonkers, he was really good and I kind of stuck with him.”

Obrigado — who is named after the Portuguese word for thank you — had four wins and finished in the money 13 times in 18 starts in 2015, earning $405,535. He won the Crawford Farms Open Trot and was second to Resolve in the TVG Free For All Series championship at the Meadowlands.

MacDonald knew he had something special from the get-go.

“I really liked him right away, he’s just a big gorgeous horse,” the driver said. “He’s really tough. I remember the first time I really knew he was a good horse, I left with him and he had the outside at Yonkers. I ended up getting parked, it was a tough field and Yonkers is a really tough track on the outside especially if you get parked around the fourth turn.

“I just sat out there and it is what it is when you’re getting parked. You’re just kind of taking your lumps and I remember I’m in last and I’m thinking ‘This thing is still loaded with trot’ and I couldn’t believe it. He was second, went just a ridiculous mile. I’m like ‘Man that’s a really good horse.’ The horse is crazy good and he showed it there.”

As the 2015 season went on, MacDonald and Kelley were hoping for an invitation to the International Trot at Yonkers — MacDonald’s home track — but failed to get one.

“He’s come back really strong this year and been really good,” MacDonald said. “So hopefully if he continues on and has a good summer maybe this year he’ll get an invite to that race. That’s the game plan. He’s so good on that track. I think he just gets around that track very good. He gets around any half-mile track really good.”

Obrigado has won three of his six starts this year, including the Charlie Hill Memorial at Scioto Downs and the Maxie Lee Memorial Invitational at Harrah’s Philadelphia. In addition to Kelley, the ownership group is Lennart Agren’s SRF Stable, Linwood Higgins, and Stable 45.

“We’ve had some fun rides this year,” MacDonald said. “He’s already knocked down a couple of big $200,000 races. The Maxie Lee and the Charlie Hill were fun. That’s good for Paul and those guys. They took a chance and now he’s in the prime of his career and he’s won over a million dollars, so good for them.”

MacDonald praised the ownership group as “real down to earth, great people to work for.” He praised the job done by Kelley, his second trainer and blacksmith Kevin Constantine and Kevin’s girlfriend, Jenna Caligaris, the horse’s groom.

“They kind of work as a team there,” MacDonald said, adding with a laugh, “I know he’s a bit of a bull in the barn. He bullies her around a little bit.”

He added that, “When you win a big race for them, they really appreciate it, and you really want to do good for them. It makes it a lot more fun.”

To hear the driver talk, it would likely be fun no matter who was the owner, considering the kind of horse he is driving.

“He’s just a big, beautiful horse, he’s really a looker,” MacDonald said. “He’s a one hundred percent competitor on the track and just fun to drive. There’s no bad trip for him. He makes you look good. He makes everybody look good. Anyone that’s watched him race knows how tough he is.

“If there’s speed, I can race from behind, if they’re not speeding, I can race on the lead. There’s not too many horses you can do that with. That’s what’s great about him. You just take a look over, see what’s going on and you go accordingly. He’ll race good either way.”

Obrigado is the 3-1 second choice behind Shake it Cerry in Saturday’s Cleveland race. MacDonald isn’t making any great predictions, saying he will just take things as they come.

“He’s got the rail, it’s a half-mile track, we’ll be a little more aggressive with him,” he said. “But he usually dictates to you what kind of race he wants to go. I’ll just play it by ear. It doesn’t really matter with him. He’s going to be trotting forward at the wire, we just have to make sure we try to get him in a good spot and don’t do anything stupid and he’ll do what he does and do his job.”

And when Obrigado does his job, it makes MacDonald’s job a whole lot easier.

“Sometimes stuff just falls in your lap,” he said. “Obi is the top horse I’m driving right now. It’s fun to drive this type of horse. It’s why we get up in the morning.”

Below is the 2016 Cleveland Trotting Classic field:

Post-Horse-Driver-Trainer-M/L
1. Obrigado-Mark MacDonald-Paul Kelley-3-1
2. Homicide Hunter-Dave Palone-Chris Oakes-4-1
3. Shake It Cerry-Ronnie Wrenn Jr.-Jimmy Takter-2-1
4. Il Sogno Dream-Trevor Henry-Christopher Beaver-10-1
5. Muscle Up The Goal-Aaron Merriman-Christopher Beaver-8-1
6. Maestro Blue Chip-Victory Kirby-Jo Ann Looney-King-6-1
7. Like Old Times-Ryan Stahl-Don McKirgan-25-1
8. Boffin-Jason Merriman-Anette Lorentzon-25-1