Rapid Redux finished racing in 2011; will return in 2012

Rapid Redux, the record-setting East Coast-based starter-allowance runner, won’t race again in 2011, ending the year with 19 victories and a streak of 21 straight dating back to 2010.

Owner Robert Cole, who claimed Rapid Redux for $6,250 in October 2010 and has seen his horse win 22 of 23 starts since, said an appropriate race in the waning days of 2011 had not come up for Rapid Redux. Rapid Redux has won 19 races in 2011, the most in a year since Citation won the same number in 1948, and Rapid Redux’s connections had hoped to eclipse that record. But to do so, Cole said, would have required Pennsylvania-based Rapid Redux to ship to Turfway Park in Kentucky or to Florida for a race at Tampa Bay Downs or Gulfstream Park.

“We didn’t want to ship him so many hours in a van and then run him,” Cole said. “That wouldn’t be very smart. He’s tied Citation’s record. It didn’t seem worth putting him in a bad spot just to go for that record.”

Trainer David Wells in more than one recent conversation brought up the possibility Rapid Redux being retired without making a 2012 start, but Cole said 5-year-old Rapid Redux would race on, at least early next year.

“During the first 10 days of January we’ll be running,” Cole said. “He’s doing great, better than he did before his last race. As long as he’s training good, he’s going to keep running. This guy doesn’t seem to want to stop.”

Rapid Redux won his last race at Laurel on Dec. 13, and has not been beaten since Nov. 18, 2010, at Penn National. Soon, however, Rapid Redux will lose his eligibility to starter-allowance races open to horses that have run for a low-level claiming price in 2010 and 2011, the very type of race that laid the groundwork for his streak. At that point, his connections will have three options: Run the horse against higher-class competition, risk losing him in a claiming race, or send Rapid Redux off to retirement. But until then, Rapid Redux’s owner thinks the show should go on.

“I think he can still win two or three more,” Cole said.