Magical Warrior Runs Down Lightening Larry to Win NYRA Bets Sprint

In another upset on the Florida Cup card, Magical Warrior came from mid-pack at the top of the stretch and produced a impressive late kick to win the NYRA Bets Sprint for Florida-bred 4-year-olds and older at six furlongs.

Lightening Larry broke on top from post five and with Powerfully Built to his outside and Oil Money on the rail, formed a three-horse formation on the lead leaving the six furlong chute. Down the backstretch, Oil Money kept pace with Lightening Larry through a :21.37 quarter-mile as Powerfully Built fell back two lengths in third and Magical Warrior and jockey Javier Castellano raced in fifth, some seven lengths off the lead.

Lightening Larry and Oil Money continued to fight each other around the far turn while sustaining the breakneck pace with a :43.85 half-mile split and turned for home heads apart. Powerfully Built edged closer in third with Magical Warrior still four lengths back on the outside with a furlong to the finish.

Lightening Larry began to separate from Oil Money approaching the sixteenth-pole and appeared the winner before Magical Warrior hit the launch button on the outside and cruised to the front in the final strides to win by a length-and-half in 1:08.96, less than .07 of a second off the track and stakes record set by Florida-bred It’s Me Mom in the 2012 Hilton Garden Inn Sprint.

Lightening Larry finished a half-length in front of third-place finisher Powerfully Built with Cyberviking fourth. Oil Money, Willy Boi, Gatsby, Hammer Lane and Happy Cajun completed the order of finish.

Magical Warrior paid $23.60 to win.

‘Our horse has a lot of speed, but our only shot at winning it was to get the horse to relax, and we had a world-class rider who was able to do that,” Bennett said. “When I saw he was sitting third on the turn for home, I thought, we can win this.”

It was an impressive victory for Magical Warrior, who was making his stakes debut and winning for the first time since taking a first condition, $75,000 optional claiming a year earlier at Tampa Bay Downs. The 4-year-old gelding went into the Sprint out of a fourth-place finish as the even-money favorite in a $16,000 starter allowance won by Imperial King going six furlongs at Tampa Bay on Feb. 17.

Bennet said he had a difficult time before the race convincing Averill Racing’s Rich Averill and Bennett’s wife Mary that the Sprint was a viable option for Magical Warrior.

“[Averill] said we had no shot. He told me I was nuts,” Bennett said. “My wife, Mary said, ‘Did you see the form on these other horses?’

“I asked her, ‘Do you remember those other times when no one thought we could win?’ You can’t win it unless you’re in it,”

“When you get the opportunity, you have to take advantage of it,” Castellano said. “[Bennett] gave me this opportunity and it was the right time and the right place.”

Magical Warrior is by Poseidon’s Warrior out of Magical Madam, by Put It Back and was bred by Richard P. Arnold. He now has four wins with a second and a third with earnings of $127,645 for trainer Gerald Bennett’s Winning Stables Inc. and Averill Racing LLC. t