Celebrity Hercules, a well-traveled eight-year-old son of Kadabra, visited Hollywood Dayton Raceway for the first time on Saturday night (December 20) and left with a hard-fought ‘nose’ victory in the weekly $10,000 Open Trot.
With the narrow victory Celebrity Hercules now has 37 lifetime wins in 141 tries and has amassed $505,265 in winnings. The former champion of WEG's Don Mills Trotting Series has won multiple races in Illinois, Indiana and Minnesota in recent years and now adds Ohio to his list of places where he has beat the best.
This victory did not come easy, however, as Celebrity Hercules got away seventh in the nine-horse field for driver Dan Noble, then moved into a position third in the outer flow during the middle half-mile. At the three-quarters, Noble flipped his charge three-wide and he eventually ground down Mystical Dew (Tyler Smith), who had raced first-over from the outside post position the entire mile, in the final stride. Favourite Rehab Mountain (Brad Hanners) put the field through relatively comfortable fractions of :27, :57 and 1:26 before yielding in deep stretch and finishing third in the 1:55.3 mile.
Jim Ellison trains Celebrity Hercules for the Dandy Farms Inc.
(With files from Dayton)