Grand River Raceway's leading driver Trevor Henry worked out a perfect pocket trip aboard 12-1 longshot Lexus Helios in the featured $7,000 Preferred 3 Trot to score his fifth win on the Wednesday night card of harness racing.
Henry and Lexus Helios sat behind leaders Long Ago and Bruce Richardson through fractions of :28.1, :58.2, 1:27.4 with the Daniel O'Brian-driven Tornado Tim applying first over pressure until breaking stride around the final turn. With open road ahead, Henry sent Lexus Helios after the tempo-setter and wore him down for the one length victory in 1:58.1, paying $26.30 to win. Long Ago stayed for second while Euro Classic and Per Henriksen came on for third.
The homebred four-year-old Ken Warkentin mare is owned and trained by Norm Dunstan of Caledon Village, Ont. An Ontario Sires Stakes graduate, Lexus Helios has won nine races and over $200,000 in purses so far in her career.
The 10th race win was one of three straight for Henry. Freshman pacing filly Haute Couture ($3.50), trained by Allan Shelton, and William Slack's pacing mare Beauty Princess ($5.20) were part of Henry's late triple. He also opened the card with back-to-back wins aboard Marty Adler's trotting mare Bridge On The Kwai ($3.50) and the grey pacing mare Ardyne Phyllis ($5.80) for trainer Riina Rekila.
The Arthur, Ont. reinsman, who is approaching the 5,000 career win mark, has driven 381 winners this year to top Canada's 2013 leaderboard.
To view Wednesday's harness racing results, click on the following link: Wednesday Results - Grand River Raceway.