Guiding Light gets by with a little help from his friend. The six-year-old trotter, who on March 14 won a $20,000 division of the Horse & Groom Series at the Meadowlands Racetrack, has stepped up his game since getting a roommate

. In this case, it is another horse – unraced four-year-old trotter Fox Valley Merlot.

“You can’t keep him in a stall by himself,” trainer Bennie Magliochetti said. “He’s been sharing a stall for four or five months. It’s amazing. They were turned out in a field a lot and when he came back in, he was like a person that is homesick. It took a while to figure out what was wrong. Now, it’s great. He definitely came around.”

Guiding Light has won seven of 29 races and earned $70,091 in his career, which really did not get off the ground until he was five. Last year, he ended the campaign with three consecutive victories at Pocono Downs, which led to Magliochetti bringing the gelding to the Meadowlands.

On Thursday, Guiding Light will be among the finalists in the $96,000 Horse & Groom final.

“He’s not a really good horse, but he’s not a bad horse,” Magliochetti said. “He just chugs along. He’d won three in a row at the Poconos and I thought he would do good at the Meadowlands. He’s as good as most of the horses in (the Horse & Groom); it comes down to the trip that you get. He might not be the calibre of some of these horses, but that’s not to say he can’t win.”

Heading into his five-year-old season, Guiding Light had raced only five times. He went off stride in every start – even in his only win to that point. Magliochetti, who got Guiding Light in June of last year, tinkered with his equipment to limit the horse’s propensity to pace.

“He’s a really sound horse and very low maintenance,” Magliochetti said. “He needs an aggressive drive. You’ve got to get after him; he’s lazy. But he’s a gem to be around.”

A victory in the Horse & Groom final on Thursday would be memorable for Magliochetti, in part because he has never won a race with such a large purse, and because it is his birthday. A retired factory worker from Pottstown, Pennsylvania, Magliochetti got interested in harness racing as a teenager after attending the races at Brandywine.

“I never was at a horse race before,” said Magliochetti, who regularly travels 75 miles roundtrip to train his horses in New Holland. “When those horses came out on the track, that was it. That was what I wanted to do. I had to still work, but I’ve been fortunate to do what I wanted to do. Fortunately, my wife (Florence) put up with it.”

Other winners of Horse & Groom Series splits have been Looking Hanover (who has two victories), PJ Clark, Jaavos Boy and Impel Hanover. Magliochetti’s small stable – he has never made more than 90 starts in a year – has earned $244,851 over the years, so it is easy to see what success in the Horse & Groom would mean.

“It would be something I’ve never experienced,” Magliochetti said.

This story courtesy of Harness Racing Communications, a division of the U.S.
Trotting Association. For more information, visit www.ustrotting.com.