Harpers First Ride
Dark Bay or Brown Gelding / April 5th, 2016 in MD / by Paynter out of Polyester
$126,609
2021 earnings
112
speed figure
33%
2021 wins
racing Record
2021 Stats
Career Stats
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2
Firsts
12
0
Seconds
2
1
Thirds
2
3
Unplaced
7
6
Starts
23
$126,609
Earnings
$699,664
$21,102
Earnings / Start
$30,420
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Bio
Harpers First Ride, a Paynter gelding owned by MCA Racing Stable and trained by Claudio Gonzalez, broke through with his first graded stakes win on Oct. 2, 2020, taking the Grade 3 Pimlico Special in a game effort over multiple graded stakes winner Owendale.
Harpers First Ride, a Paynter gelding owned by MCA Racing Stable and trained by Claudio Gonzalez, broke through with his first graded stakes win on Oct. 2, 2020, taking the Grade 3 Pimlico Special in a game effort over multiple graded stakes winner Owendale.
That victory was his eighth from 14 career starts and followed his first stakes win one start prior, when he scored in the Deputed Testamony Stakes at Laurel Park. He was claimed by his owners and trainer off of a win at Churchill Downs in September 2019 and moved to the Mid-Atlantic circuit, where he won five of nine starts before his back-to-back stakes victories.
Harpers First Ride won back-to-back stakes races at the fall meet at Laurel in 2020. He won the Richard W. Small Stakes by three lengths on Nov. 28, then prevailed in the Native Dancer Stakes by 3 1/2 lengths on Dec. 26. On the strength of that success, he was entered in the Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup Invitational Stakes at Gulfstream Park on Jan. 23, 2021, but he was eased after briefly pressing the pace.
Following that race, he was transferred to the barn of Robertino Diodoro, where he struggled in three stakes tries. He returned to Gonzalez's stable in late spring of 2021, and won two in a row at Pimlico, including a 1 1/2-length victory in the Deputed Testamony Stakes at Pimlico on July 31.
