Dennis Gardner’s Goomster (Travis Seekman) will be honored as Illinois 2023 Harness Horse of the Year in Springfield, IL on March 2nd. (Patricia Fryman Photography)

By Mike Paradise for the IHHA 

  Like any small horse racing owner and trainer Dennis Gardner fantasized of one day having “a good horse” as an Illinois horseman. After almost four decades at his craft, his dream became a reality, thanks to his very talented trotter Goomster.

  The now 4-year-old state-bred trotter has blossomed into not just a “good horse,” but an exceptional one for the third-generation Prairie State horseman and will be honored as the 2024 Illinois Harness Horse of the Year on March 2nd at state’s Standardbred banquet in Springfield.

  “He’s been phenomenal,” said Dennis. “He’s for sure a once in a lifetime horse. I thought when I first started racing him, he had a chance to be good, but I never thought he would be this good.”

 How good was Goomster in his 3-year-old campaign? Dominance in his class would be the right word to describe it.

 The Cassis gelding won an amazing 15 of 17 starts, to go along with a pair of seconds, against other ICF trotters and “ran the board” in Illinois stake competition, capturing his division of the Cardinal and ICS Final last summer at Springfield, along with Du Quoin’s Pronto Don and the $90,000 Erwin F. Dygert Memorial Final on Hawthorne’s Night of Champions. The gifted trotter took his mark of 1:52.4 last July at Springfield.

  Goomster ranked in over $137,000 in Illinois and another $20,000-plus in a trio of Hoosier Park events last Fall against older, more seasoned trotters.

  Goomster won the $30,000 Workaholic Trot and a $20,000 Open 3 in Indiana. The lone time he didn’t finish first or second last year in a race was a fourth-place finish in Hoosier’s $27,500 Dexter Moss Memorial when he raced first-up and was beaten less than three lengths, trotting in 1:54.3.

 “I want to thank Travis and Desiree Seekman for the great job they did with the horse,” said Gardner, who turned over his trainer duties with the horse to the husband-wife team at the end of September. “I had a lot going on training my horses, “breaking” my young horses and it being harvest time, so I asked the Seekman’s if they would help out and take my racing horses from me. They said yes, and Goomster been just great for them.”

 Goomster was victorious in his first five starts for the Seekman’s, including the Dygert championship.

 “Goomster just got better and better as the season went on,” said Travis. “I think he was his sharpness in his last start of the year when he won a Hawthorne Open in December. He did it pretty handily and I had plenty of horse left at the end of the mile.”

 Goomster will also be revered on March 2nd as the ICF 3-year-old Male Trotter of the Year, an honor he was won as a freshman when he was driven exclusively at Kyle Wilfong. With Wilfong committed last year to driving at Hoosier Park, Dennis turned to Seekman to pilot his trotters in Illinois last season.

 “As the year went on, I got to know Dennis better and we have become great friends,” continued Travis. “I don’t think I go more than two days without being on the phone with him. His friendship has meant a lot to me and Desiree.”

  As far as Goomster’s racing plans for 2024, they’ll begin in Kentucky. “He’ll be off for the next six and one-half weeks and then go to Oak Grove in April,” revealed Gardner.

 Bred by Vern Miller of Sullivan, Illinois., the son of Cassis was the first foal of the Muscle Holl mare Sheeza Muscle Girl.