Loopy Dude finally shed the embarrassing designation of “always a bridesmaid, never a bride” with a convincing, rail-skimming 4 1/2-length victory at Albuquerque Wednesday night, breaking a losing streak of 17 straight races. It wasn’t that the 3-year-old gelding by First Dude was performing poorly, he had only finished off the board four times while racking up a record of eight seconds and five thirds. 

    Rodolpho Guerra was aboard the gelding bred by the West Port High School Future Farmers of America, a $5,000 OBS June 2-year-old. Guerra settled Loopy Dude comfortably in fifth place on the rail down the backstretch in the race at seven furlongs, and the gelding saved a ton of ground by never leaving the inside. He slipped through into the stretch and drove to the wire to the track announcer’s call: “scraping the paint on the inside . . . with a nice promising run . . . Loopy Dude now takes over . . . they’ll never get’im.”

    Loopy Dude raced the seven furlongs in 1:24.31, paid $4.60 and earned a check for $9,976 , becoming winner No. 39 for First Dude in 2023.