Although he is never going to be remembered as their richest trainee or even their most talented — near-millionaire Muad’dib curretnly has those titles on lockdown — Penguin Power will always hold a special place in the hearts of trainer Jeff Runco and owner David Raim.

The nine-year-old heads to Saturday’s West Virginia Breeders Classics seeking his third straight West Virginia Dash For Cash Breeders Classic and his sixth consecutive tally on Classics night. Were he to win, he would join Not for Sam as the only runners to win three straight Dashes.

Now a nine-year-old son of Fiber Sonde, Penguin Power recently captured the $50,000 Last Enchantment Stakes at Charles Town in his final prep for the upcoming WV Dash For Cash BC for his first win from five starts this year. He now sports 20 wins and nearly $615,000 banked from 42 career tries and ranks second only to Muad’dib in earnings among horses that Runco has trained for Raim.

Penguin Power, bred by the late John McKee, can boast of stakes victories from one-turn sprints to three-turn routes over the strip.

“He’s such a neat horse and he’s definitely one of my all-time favorites,” Runco said of Penguin Power, who prevailed at first asking for Runco and Raim in a maiden special weight event for state-bred males just over seven years ago on September 21, 2017. “He has always been really versatile and he’s also really durable. He’s faced a lot of the best West Virginia-breds over the years in stakes, and he’s won a number of them going short and going two turns.”

Exactly two years after graduating in his career debut, Penguin Power recorded the first stakes victory of his career when he captured the Frank Gall Memorial for state-bred older runners. He returned three weeks later to prevail in the Onion Juice BC and then four weeks later, in his first attempt at the three-turn distance of one mile and one-eighth he tallied in the A Huevo Stakes, recently renamed the Randy Funkhouser Memorial.

“Early in his career he was one of those horses that needed to be on the lead,” Runco said. “He had so much natural early speed that he usually made it to the front on his own. In the A Huevo that one year, he got the lead and no one went with him and he just kept going. I mean, you don’t see too many horses around here that can win stakes at three different distances.”

One year later Penguin Power captured the Confucius Say Stakes in the spring – fittingly named for the West Virginia-bred Hall of Fame runner who could also boast of stakes victories at three different distances over the surface – then after running third in the Gall came back to successfully defend his title in the Onion Juice. Then after a rough start to his six-year-old campaign in 2021 he prevailed in the Onion Juice for a third straight year that fall.

During the midway point of his seven-year-old season in 2022, Runco switched tactics with his talented, versatile aged campaigner. He focused his efforts on the one-turn dash sprints going 4 1/2 furlongs, and the Fiber Sonde gelding immediately adapted to them. He scored in the Last Enchantment Stakes and came right back to triumph in the WV Dash For Cash.

Runco and Raim realized Penguin Power’s twilight years would still be fulfilling.

 One year ago he finished third in the Last Enchantment, but he rebounded to triumph in the Dash For Cash for a second straight year. With that win he became the first horse in the near-40-year history of the Breeders Classics to post five victories, snapping a tie with four-time winner Confucius Say.

Earlier this summer, at the ripe age of nine following a quartet of solid but winless performances, he again proved to his connections that he is peaking at the right time.

On the undercard of the Grade II, $1 million Charles Town Classic and Grade II, $750,000 Charles Town Oaks, Penguin Power rallied from just off the pace with jockey Angel Cruz aboard to forge a 10-1 upset in the Last Enchantment Stakes by getting the 4 1/2 furlongs in 51.65. In so doing, he ran down three-year-old Pork Chop Pete to prevail by a head.

It was the 20th victory of a career that had begun nearly seven years earlier and confirmed that his aging legs still have plenty of youthful vigor.

As this year’s WVBC night approaches, Runco is the events all-time leading trainer with 36 wins – one more than the late James Casey – and Raim is the leading owner with 15 victories, two more than Casey’s late wife Eleanor.

That both men are atop the leaderboard is thanks in no small part to the veteran runner with the funny name.

“There’s not many horses capable of doing what he’s done in his career,” Runco said of Penguin Power. “He still loves racing and he still has a knack of knowing where the wire is. When we cut him back to 4 1/2 [furlongs] a couple of years ago, we figured that we could pick our spots with him and he could still compete. He’s nine years old and still doing what he loves to do.”

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