Coop tried harder, found that sometimes ‘fame is fleeting’

Coop Tries Harder might have set two records with his victory in the third race at Gulfstream yesterday.

First, the 7-year-old gelding by Gone Astray lowered the record for ‘about’ five furlongs over the new Tapeta surface to :57.63 seconds. Then, he might have enjoyed the shortest reign ever as a record-holder when Fawning lowered the mark to :57.25 just five races later.

Coop Tries Harder was sent off as the 3/2 favorite with Junior Alvarado aboard after having finished second in his 2022 debut. The gelding bred by Dr. Thomas Brokken came from off the pace to score by 1 1/4 lengths, paying $5 and collecting a check for $22,100, which raised his career bank account to a healthy $207,472, while his record jumped to 5-6-8 in 34 starts.

It might not have been a surprise, if, on the way back to trainer Jane Cibelli’s barn, Coop Tries Harder was heard singing the old Sinatra favorite with a little change of words, “The way I traveled the track, the way I went 57.63, the memory of all that, no, no, they can’t take that away from me.”