Home sweet home. That's the way Lutetium has to be feeling after returning to Buffalo Raceway in Wednesday evening (April 15) and strolling to an easy six and a quarter length victory in the $8,500 conditioned trot.
Talk about loving home cooking. Lutetium has nine wins in 19 starts with $59,532 in earnings at Buffalo Raceway since the beginning of 2014. He has won 19 times in 38 tries overall in that span.
After scoring a win at Northville Downs and taking a parked fourth-place at Northfield Park in Open Trots the past two weeks, Lutetium ($3.20) took no prisoners on his home turf. Getting to the top with ease from the six-hole, Lutetium put up splits of :28.3, :57.4 and 1:27.
The last quarter-mile was a throttled down :29.4 as Lutetium (Kevin Cummings) had the remaining field of seven waving the white flag in surrender, stopping the timer in a seasonal best of 1:56.4 over the fast track. Justgottogetthere (Jim McNeight) finished in second-place while Flaming Yankee (Shawn Gray) took third.
Owned by Colleen Girdlestone and trained by Mark Laidlaw, Lutetium has now won three times in eight starts in 2015, earning $19,341. The eight-year-old gelding (Credit Winner-Luby) now has a career bankroll of $295,737.
In the co-featured $8,500 Open II Pace for the fillies and mares, Shes A Maniac had some bad luck in the photo finish as she was nosed out at the wire by Fiftyonefifty. But her misfortune turned into a victory a few minutes later as she was awarded the win via disqualification.
It looked like Fiftyonefifty (Cummings) was going to escape with a narrow nose victory as she just managed to get in front of the pacesetting Shes A Maniac (Jim McNeight). The celebration was short-lived as Fiftyonefifty was placed fourth for an euro-rail violation at the top of the stretch.
Shes A Maniac ($7.70) ended up in the winner's circle while Basic Survival (Jack Flanigen), who finished in third a nose behind, was elevated to second. Its De Lovely (David McNeight III) was moved up to third.
Owned by North Creek Racing LLC and trained by Jerry Nugent Jr., Shes A Maniac (Rocknroll Hanover-Check And Raise) has now won $14,948 in 2015 and $316,516 in her career.
Real Joy was just that to her backers as Shawn McDonough steered her to a $118.50 victory in the seventh race.
Racing will continue on Friday night with a 12-race program set for 6:35 p.m. at Buffalo Raceway.
(With files from Buffalo Raceway)