Olympic Lights rallied from last place and scored a 1-¼ length victory over Ugottabcatty in Friday’s $11,900 American Horse Transportation Purse at Emerald Downs.
With Leslie Mawing aboard for his 123rd victory of the season, Olympic Lights ran 6-½ furlongs in 1:15.46 on a fast track and paid $3.60, $2.40 and $2.60. Trained by Charles Essex, Olympic Lights has 12 career victories at Emerald Downs and ranks third behind West Seattle Boy (20 wins) and Noosa Beach (13) on the active runners list.
Ugottabcatty, the longest price on the board at 10-to-1, finished second under Gallyn Mitchell and paid $7.20 and $3.80. Emancipated, ridden by Joe Crispin, led into the stretch but weakened slightly to finish third and paid $3.40.
Cat On Base, Zagreus and Warrior Jon completed the order of finish. Immigration and Snow On the River were scratched earlier in the day.
A blazing front-runner for most of his career—including a meet fastest 1:08 1/5 for six furlongs in 2008— Olympic Lights has radically altered his running style this season. The 7-year-old gelding is now content to wait early, and come running hard in the stretch. It’s a tactic that has worked in three of his four wins this season, and the gelding continues to hold form with some of the best older claiming sprinters at Emerald Downs.
Owned by Essex, Moon Glow Farms and Dennis Trenkenschuh, Olympic Lights is among only seven horses with four wins at the meeting. By Tropic Lightning-Maria Michele, the dark bay gelding has a lifetime record of 13-8-1 in 36 starts with earnings of $109,961.
NOTES: Mawing, Mitchell and Leonel Camacho-Flores rode two wins apiece on the eight-race card…Mawing has 36 multiple-win days and, with a 33-win lead over Juan Gutierrez, has all but clinched his first Emerald Downs riding title…Camacho-Flores has five wins the last two days and has climbed into eighth place with 38 wins. “Cam-Flo” notched the evening’s biggest upset with a triumph aboard 16-to-1 Valanjou in the fourth race…Essex was the lone trainer with two wins…With five days left in the meet, Frank Lucarelli clings to a 50-48 lead on Howard Belvoir in the trainers’ standings…Rapid Redux ($3.20) notched his 17th straight victory and 15th this year with a gate-to-wire victory at Charles Town, West Virginia. The 5-year-old son of Pleasantly Perfect began the streak last November…Live racing continues Saturday with an eight-race program at 2 p.m.
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