Drivers forgot they had one more lap to go!

How hard is it to count to four?

In the heat of the moment in harness racing, it can be tricker than it appears.

At the half-mile track in Åmål, Sweden Monday, top drivers Björn Goop and Stefan Persson fought a tough battle down the stretch as their horses approached the finish line.

The problem, though, was that the race was not over: the duo still had one lap to go in the 2880 meter event, roughly 1 4/5th mile, long race.

“I have to admit that we were wrong on the [number of] laps. He (Persson) made a strong attack and I responded to that. Everyone can make mistakes,” Björn Goop told racing channel ATG Live after the race.

The Goop-Persson duel ended with a win for the latter’s Kadabra Dream, trained by Per Henriksson, over Goop’s Pewdiepie.

Stefan Persson, one of the top Swedish drivers with 118 wins so far this year, gave credit to his horse after the race. Kadabra Dream, a son of Kadabra and from the New Jersey Sires Stakes champion mare Emantee, won the first duel, before Persson mistakenly slowed him down thinking the race was over.

Then Persson had to restart the seven-year-old gelding and Kadabra Dream showed class when he easily pulled away from Bourne Dominion down the final stretch to win for real.

“I really have to thank the horse who saved me. I miscounted the laps and when I realized what I had done I thought it was goodnight and bye bye for us. But the horse was fantastic and saved me from a total fiasco,” Stefan Persson explained to ATG Live.

For Goop it didn’t go to well. Pewdiepie was tired and faded to fifth on the last lap.

by Lisa Harkema, for Harnesslink