“He’s all freshened up, healed up, and qualified big. He felt like his old self. I think we’re back to normal. I think we’ll be ready for these guys again.”

Googoo Gaagaa is ready to return to action. The record-setting three-year-old trotter will face seven rivals in Thursday’s $20,550 Maryland Standardbred Race Fund event at Ocean Downs in Maryland. Among his foes will be Windshield, who is six-for-six this year and the winner of 14 of 16 career starts.

Googoo Gaagaa, bred, trained and owned by Richard Hans and driven by Corey Callahan, will be racing for the first time since going off stride in both the Yonkers Trot on July 7 and a division of the Stanley Dancer Memorial on July 14.

Prior to his missteps, the son of pacing stallion Cams Rocket dazzled the sport with the fastest trotting mile ever on a five-eighths-mile oval by winning the $500,000 Earl Beal Jr. Memorial in 1:50.4 at Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs. A week earlier, Googoo Gaagaa trotted a world-record 1:51.3 in his Beal elimination.

After the Stanley Dancer setback, Googoo Gaagaa was found to be suffering from a splint injury.

“We found out he had a splint on his left hind leg,” said Callahan, who was a standout scholastic soccer and hockey player in Maryland. “I’ve had shin splints before, when I was in high school, and it’s really tough on you. We got that worked on and gave him a couple of weeks off.

“I think the rest was the biggest thing. He set two world records in a row. It took its toll on him.”

Googoo Gaagaa prepped for his start Thursday at Ocean Downs with a 1:53.4 qualifier win at Harrah’s Philadelphia on July 31. He trotted the second half of the mile in :55.4, with a :27.3 final quarter.

The winner of 11 of 14 career starts and $381,592 in purses, Googoo Gaagaa’s unorthodox breeding coupled with his record-breaking speed attracted widespread attention. Hans’ family owns Cams Rocket and Hans paired the pacing stallion with his trotting mare Koras Trotter after she failed to get in foal to a trotting stallion.

Googoo Gaagaa should feel at home at Ocean Downs. Last season, he trotted the fastest mile ever by a two-year-old on a half-mile track when he won the Maryland Sire Stakes championship by 41 lengths in 1:56 at Ocean Downs.

If all goes well Thursday, Googoo Gaagaa will be pointed toward the $500,000 Colonial for 3-year-old trotters at Harrah’s Philadelphia on August 19.

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