Thursday afternoon featured the Snowflake Mini Series for trotters at Saratoga Casino Hotel, with two divisions on tap in the Mini Series that will culminate next Thursday with a $15,000 final.
Driver Phil Fluet piloted the winners of both divisions; each of them pulling off upsets.
Fluet guided the Lisa Zabielski-trained Wrightwood (Powerful Emotion) to a 1:59.2 score on Thursday as the four year old came from well off the pace before storming past his rivals to pull off the upset in the $7,000 tilt. Despite coming off a win, Wrightwood was dismissed at odds of 16-1 as he repeated and secured his third victory of the season.
The other division, which was slated to have nine participants, went for a purse of $7,490. The field shrunk to six after three scratches and again it was Fluet who wound up making a trip to the winner’s circle after guiding longshot Mr Butterworth (Mr Lavec) to victory in 1:58.3. The 13-1 shot Mr Butterworth parlayed his pocket trip to score for Fluet and trainer Laurie Tranowicz. Fluet piloted three winners on the matinee card.
The Mini Series is for trotters who had earnings of less than $12,500 in 2017 or were non-winners of $20,000 in ’16-’17.
Live racing continues on Friday night at Saratoga with a 6:45 p.m. first post.
(Saratoga Casino Hotel)