Louprint easily swept the 80th Little Brown Jug with a winning time of 1:50.1. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
His physical appearance did not belie his consistency of performance. Three-year-old unbeaten pacer Louprint swept through the qualifying heats and the climactic final to capture the 80th Little Brown Jug Championship Thursday in Delaware.
Delaware, OH — If The Little Brown Jug was an equine beauty pageant, Louprint would have the judges mesmerized.
They would slap a blue ribbon on his sleek black coat with a white stripe on his nose and say, “Now that’s a real black beauty.”
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And indeed Louprint was a thing of beauty late Thursday afternoon at the Delaware County Fairgrounds, but it was the speed that had his mane straight out from his neck that drew attention for nearly 50,000 witnesses.
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Louprint was an easy, breezy winner of the 80th Little Brown Jug, a $500,000 pot for the 3-year-old pacer.
Along for the ride was driver Ronnie Wrenn Jr. and all he had to do was make certain Louprint did not lose interest because he was on an uncontested stroll. And it was no Beauty and the Beast, because while Louprint is a handsome steed, Wrenn carries movie-star looks.
First, in order to race for the big money, Louprint had to race in one of two elimination races against six other horses. The top four advance to the finals.
Wrenn seeking his first Little Brown Jug ring, was in the first elimination race and guided Louprint to the front early and it became the wild pursuit of Black Beauty – futility as Louprint went wire-to-wire in a swift 1:50 3/5ths for the mile.
His biggest competition was expected to be Prince Hal Hanover, driven by Todd McCarthy, winner of last year’s Jug behind Captain Albanao. But the Prince was a pauper in this one and never challenged Louprint.
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That made Louprint the big favorite in the final race with his only real competition expected to be from Odds On Outlier, driven by harness racing legend Dexter Dunn.
Odds on Outlier won the second elimination race in 1:49 3/5, faster than Louprint in the first elimination, and at the track the word is, “If you don’t bet on Dunn, you’re done.” And he usually does what Larry The Cable Guy says, “Git ‘er Dunn.”
Odds on Outlier actually ran a faster mile in the qualifying heat, but was no match for Louprint in the Final.
Not this day. Louprint came out of the No. 1 hole in the final and Odds and Outlier broke from No. 2. Wrenn beat Dunne to the first turn and it was all over.
Less than two months ago, there was a fear that Louprint might not race this year and might not race again. He suffered a hernia and surgery to remove a testicle.
“I never thought we could have as good of a horse as he is because we had Sweet Lou,” said principal owner Phil Collura, referring to Louprint’s sire, a big winner. “But I think he is better than Sweet Lou at three.
“When Louprint was two, I wasn’t sure,” Collura added. At two, Louprint raced 10 times and won seven, finished second twice and showed once — 10 races, all in the money, and $738,000 won.
“But now, I know, he’s better,” he said. Indeed, better is perfection. Louprint has started nine races (as a three-year-0ld) and won all nine.
“It’s so cool to have a son of Sweet Lou be this good,” he added. “We’ve had a lot of horses, but not like this. He’s special. And not just because the kind of horse he is, but what he overcame.”
That was the surgery a couple of months ago.
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“He had to have a testicle removed because of a hernia, so we didn’t know what kind of horse we were going to get back,” Collura continued. “Are we going to see the real Louprint? When he qualified, we looked at each other and said, ‘I think we have him back.’ He has been like a blessing, just awesome.”
Same horse, only better. And Collura said after the elimination race he was confident he’d would win the Jug. Then he smiled and said, “The other cool thing was that I got to name him. Of all the horses we have, I got to name Louprint. So cool.”
Ohio governor Mike DeWine made the bold prediction…his faith was in horse #1. Louprint ran from the pole position.
Louprint is obviously a blueprint to winning.
“He is an amazing horse,” said Wrenn, a statement about five lengths below the obvious. “He is really special. He is capable of anything I ask of him.
“He is slick-gaiting, which is awesome for a small track like this because he can race on any size track,” he added.”He just knows how to win…like, he’s a great horse.”
Wrenn said he was down and concerned when he heard about Louprint’s bout with a veterinarian’s scalpel.
“When I first heard about it, I was expecting the worst news like, ‘He’s probably never gonna race again, but hopefully he is going to be OK,’” he said. “And hopefully he is going to be able to sire, something very important in our business.
“I think he is going to be a great sire. The way he’s racing he is going to have some great off-spring. And I knew when I qualified him last month, after the second qualifier, I knew he was back. He might still have some scar tissue, but it doesn’t seem to slow him down.”
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It certainly hasn’t. He cooked the field in 1:50 1/5 in the final after winning the elimination race.
“He was really good in the elimination and my biggest competition in the race was Prince Hal Hanover and he didn’t have his ‘A’ game today, so I was able to get a relatively slow mile to conserve energy for the final. At the top of the stretch I was pretty confident.”
A rising star in harness racing, Chris Page (in front) accomplished his fourth straight ‘grand slam’…and 15 winners in the first four days of the Delaware County Fair meet.
Breaking from the No. 1 hole is the premium spot at the Delaware County Fairgrounds because there is no passing lane which means horses have to go right and it is easy to get boxed in.
While Wrenn was the Driver of the Day, a driver without a ride for The Little Brown Jug is the star of the week.
During Thursday’s 20-race card, Mount Vernon’s Chris Page accomplished his fourth straight Grand Slam, four winners a day. And he began the Delaware meet with three winners — 15 winners in the first four days.
Page won the fourth race, the $116,440 Ohio Breeders Cup Championship behind three-year-old Rick Wink.
But he had no seat in the Jug. Page, though, was pulling for Wrenn because they are friends.
Page has won the Jug in the past and said he wanted Wrenn to get his first.
“I heard him (yelling) in the post parade and I heard him after I won,” said Wrenn. “In 2012 I moved to Northfield Park and that’s when Chris started racing there.
“We got to know each other and we’ve become friends, even though we want to beat each other as competitors,” he added. “We’re about the same age, we both have families, we connected well, and we both race for (trainer) Ronnie Burke. So we always support each other.”
So while Page won four races on the card, Wrenn won his first Jug and said, “Yep, my first one. Feels awesome. Hopefully not my last. I’ve been in a couple of Jugs before, but this is the first as one of the headliners, favored to get the job done.”
And that he did.
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