The remarkable unbeaten streak of Cooper is over.
The Cinderella Amish buggy horse’s eight-race winning streak ended in the eighth race at Northfield Park Monday evening when his attempt to go wire-to-wire saw him get swallowed up in midstretch. Cooper tired to finish sixth in the field of nine, yet was beaten just 1 ¾ lengths.
Longshot Master Mighty stormed down the middle of the track to surge past Cooper and prevail. He was timed the mile in 1:56 4/5 and paid $27.20 to win.
Cooper, a trotter, failed to win in six starts as a two-year-old in 2015 and left the racetrack to be a personal horse for an Amish family in Sugarcreek, Oh. Earlier this year, when then owner Homer Stutzman realized the Cooper was traveling down the roads of Tuscarawas County at a hectic clip, he turned him over to a friend, harness trainer Firman Troyer.
The conversion from pulling a buggy to pulling a sulky resulted in the run of victories, all at Northfield, stretching from early June until late September.
by Bob Roberts, for the Cleveland Plains Dealer