“The day he was born, that night there was a ruckus coming from the barn and I went out with my rifle, thinking it might be a fox or a coyote. It turned out he was he was racing back and fourth…”

Hi Ho Houdini may have gotten off to a late start, but he’s certainly making up for lost time, as he has won six of his seven starts. He now has his sights set on Sunday’s California Sire Stakes event for four-year-old male pacers at Cal Expo.

The son of Hi Ho Silverheels races for Lujuanna Lopez and takes his lessons from Gordie Graham. He is regularly piloted by Luke Plano and was an impressive winner a month ago during the division’s first stakes dance of the season. Since then, Hi Ho Houdini has captured the Marvin Shapiro Stakes and a conditioned event in the interim.

“It’s a dream come true to have a horse like this,” Lopez told Cal Expo’s media department. “This is beyond what I could have ever hoped for with Hi Ho Houdini.”

Lopez , who currently has five horses, first became involved with the sport when she was rescuing horses some nine years ago and started to meet members of the harness racing community. “The more people I met, the more interested I became,” she explained.

Lujuanna’s farm was home to the Park Place mare Holls Park Place while she was carrying Hi Ho Houdini, so she has been involved with the pacer from the very beginning.

“He’s quite the athlete, but he can also be very mischievous,” she noted.

“The day he was born, that night there was a ruckus coming from the barn and I went out with my rifle, thinking it might be a fox or a coyote. It turned out he was he was racing back and fourth and it was causing Holls Park Place to throw a fit.”

At the moment, the only ones who are throwing a fit are Hi Ho Houdini’s rivals.

Hi Ho Houdini has drawn Post 1 in Race 8 at Cal Expo on Sunday and has been pegged as the 8-5 morning line favourite.

The 12-dash program also features an Open Pace (Race 3) and Open Trot (Race 6).

First-race post time is 5:05 p.m.

(With files from Cal Expo)