Seaford, DE --- Trainer Justin Brenneman was scrolling through an online listing of horses for sale when one name brought him to a stop. Winbak Red. The old trotter instantly brought to mind Brenneman’s childhood at Ocean Downs. There he’d grown up, learning the ins and outs of harness racing from trainers and grooms with decades of experience with Standardbreds. It was there he watched Winbak Red transform from a green 3-year-old to an open trotter for trainer Richard Ringler.

 

And so Brenneman had no qualms about selling his only racehorse to buy Winbak Red, now 12, for $2,000 with partner John Barth.

 

“I’ve always liked old classy horses,” he said. “Most of them like to race and they like to win.” 

 

Brenneman, 25, purchased Winbak Red (Muscles Yankee-Red Oak’s Angel) the first week of March. The trotter had spent the winter racing at Miami Valley Raceway. Though he managed a win in 2:00.1 on Feb. 8, Winbak Red came back to trot a mile in 2:07 in a $5,000 claimer the following week. He raced once more in Ohio, finishing fourth in 2:03.2, before heading east. 

 

Brenneman was optimistic he’d be able to get the horse back on track.

 

“He was sound so I thought I could make a couple changes to help him,” he said.

 

Brenneman, who works for a trainer in Delaware and usually keeps a horse or two of his own on the side, said the first thing he did was change Winbak Red’s shoeing -- back to the way it was when the trotter was winning the open at Harrington Raceway.

 

“I put four aluminums on with toe weights in the front the way Richie (Ringler) used to,” Brenneman said.

 

Eager to keep the horse off the qualifying list, he put him in at Rosecroft Raceway two weeks after buying him. Brenneman figured if nothing else the trotter, who raced in the snow in Ohio, would pick up a few seconds just by racing in the more moderate temperatures of his home state. 

 

Winbak Red did more than that. He came from behind for driver Frank Milby to win by four lengths in 1:56.3.

 

“I thought he’d trot more than he was out there (in Ohio) but I didn’t think he’d go in 1:56,” Brenneman said.

 

If he was impressed then, he was even more impressed the following week when Winbak Red came back to win against some of the track’s top trotters in 1:56.

 

“He was in tougher but Frank (Milby) said he was very handy,” Brenneman said.

 

For Brenneman it was simply validation of his respect for “classy old horses.” Winbak Red has made every year of his decade-long career a winning one.

 

The trotter won his first race at Rosecroft Raceway in 2006 as a 3-year-old. He stayed in the Mid-Atlantic area for several years, winning races at Harrington and Dover, where he set a then lifetime mark of 1:55.3 as a 5-year-old.

 

Winbak Red had the best year of his long career in 2011 with a move to the Empire State. The trotter won 14 times and earned $101,820 -- nearly a quarter of his lifetime earnings -- that year alone. He set a new lifetime mark of 1:55.1 the following year at Pocono Downs but has slowed down since.

 

Brenneman is hopeful though that these latest wins are a sign of more to come. Though Winbak Red made just $7,906 last year, the trotter has already earned $8,385 in 2015 with just eight starts.

 

Brenneman plans to start racing him at Harrington Raceway later this month. In the meantime, he’s letting him enjoy some time off in the field.

 

“I just try to keep him happy,” Brenneman said.