American Girl cops Open at Miami Valley

LEBANON, OH. – American Girl recorded her fifth win in ten tries at the 2016 Miami Valley Raceway meet in Friday night's $20,000 Mares Open Pace.

Driver Ronnie Wrenn Jr. sent the seven-year-old Art's Chip mare winging from the get-go to score the one-length victory over favored Safe From Terror (Chris Page), who was last week's winner of the weekly Friday featujre race. Wrenn Jr. guided the winner through fractions of :27.4, :57, and 1:24.4 before tripping the teletimer in 1:54 over a damp track rated 'good'.

Page backed the runnerup off the gate at the start, then worked out a second-over trip that fell just one tick short. Hidden Land (Peter Wrenn) got the ground-saving pocket ride and finished third.

Darla Gaskin and Stanley Rosenblatt own American Girl, who now boasts $55,400 in seasonal earnings and $643,188 in her fabulous career. She has 33 wins, 25 place and 29 show finishes in just 122 lifetime starts, an impressive 71% in-the-money scorecard.

A pair of final preliminary round divisions of the Dr. Don Mossbarger Memorial Series were also contested for mares that were non-winners of six pari-mutuel races or $50,000 at the outset of the late-closer.

Ginger Tree Alexis (Josh Sutton) copped the first split in 1:56.2 over Tucson Breeze (Dan Noble) and Dolly's Girl (Kayne Kauffman). Howard Taylor owns the four-year-old winning daughter of Dragon Again, who was shipped to the Virgil Morgan Jr. Stable for this event. Jackie's Rocket (Brady Galliers), already the winner this season of the Herb Coven Jr. Memorial Series, pulled off a narrow 'nose' upset triumph in the second division, topping Townlinedaliscard (Kayne Kauffman) and Southwind Roulette (Chris Page) in 1:56.

Those six mares will be joined by Cool Desire, Swinging Cami and Dandys Beauty when the $25,000 championship final goes postward next Friday.

Miami Valley has been on a roll handle-wise with back-to-back betting records on Monday and Tuesday afternoons earlier this week. Following a handle of $395,433 on the Monday matinee, a total of $401,001 was wagered on the Tuesday program.

From the Miami Valley Media Department