Lujuanna Lopez enjoying
Hi Ho Houdini experience
By Mark Ratzky, publicity – Cal Expo Harness
Hi Ho Houdini may have gotten
off to a late start, not making his first trip to the post until December, but
he’s certainly making up for lost time having won six of his seven starts with
sights set squarely on Sunday’s Sire Stakes for the 4-year-old pacing males.
The son of Hi Ho
Silverheel’s, who races for Lujuanna Lopez, takes his lessons from Gordie
Graham and is regularly piloted by Luke Plano, was an impressive winner of the
first stakes dance of the season for the division a month ago and has captured
the Marvin Shapiro and a conditioned event in the interim.
“It’s a dream come true to
have a horse like this,” Lopez related. “This is beyond what I could have ever
hoped for with Hi Ho Houdini.”
Lopez , who currently has
five horses, first became involved with the sport when she was rescuing horses
some nine years ago and started to meet members of the harness racing
community. “The more people I met, the more interested I became,” she explained.
Lujuanna’s farm was home to
the Park Place mare Holls Park Place while she was carrying Hi Ho Houdini, so
she has been involved with the pacer from the very beginning. “He’s quite the
athlete, but he can also be very mischievous,” she noted.
“The day he was born, that
night there was a ruckus coming from the barn and I went out with my rifle,
thinking it might be a fox or a coyote. It turned out he was he was racing back
and fourth and it was causing Holls Park Place to throw a fit.”
At the moment, the only ones
who are throwing a fit are Hi Ho Houdini’s rivals.
Sire Stakes, pair of
Opens head marquee
A $10,000 California Sire
Stakes for the 4-year-old pacers featuring Hi Ho Houdini and Uringoodhands; an
Open Trot headed by Northern Stormont and an Open Pace featuring I’m An Athlete
head the Sunday program at Cal Expo.
There will be 12 races
presented by Watch and Wager LLC and the action gets under way at 5:05 p.m. The
Open Pace is the third event on the evening, the Open Trot occupies the
sixth-race slot and the Sire Stakes goes as the eighth race.
In the first stakes dance for
the 4-year-old males one month ago, Uringoodhands was the 1-5 favorite , but it
was Hi Ho Houdini who prevailed while turning in a lifetime best 1:53 1/5
performance with a sparkling :26 3/5 final quarter.
Uringoodhands is a Kent’s On
Nuke homebred who races for Mark Anderson, hails from the Gordie Graham barn
and will be guided by James Kennedy. Hi Ho Houdini is another Graham trainee
who represents Lujuanna Lopez with Luke Plano once again handling the lines.
Since that Sire Stakes score,
Hi Ho Houdini has added two more victories, including a handy decision in the
Marvin Shapiro Pace two weeks ago. Sent off the 1-9 favorite in that contest,
came out late on the final bend, took command early in the drive and went on to
a two-length score.
Suiting up for a conditioned
affair last week, the sharp performer once again rewarded the chalkplayers to
the tune of $4 as did the track-and-attack to perfection for Plano and won
going away by two and a quarter lengths.
Taking on this dynamic duo,
from the rail out: Lodi Machete Man from the Pierre Girard barn; the Vickie
Desomer-conditioned Musician, Sounion for Edwin Quevado; the Sal
Wenceslao-trained Laissezmoipicoler and Hi Ho’s Little Rev from Bob Johnson’s
shedrow.
