Oak Grove, KY — After having wins snatched from him in his last two tries at the class, Great Seats returned from a stint in the Kentucky Sire Stakes to go a no-holds-barred 1:51.4 mile in the featured $15,000 conditioned pace at Oak Grove Racing, Gaming & Hotel on Tuesday (May 14).

Great Seats won the featured $15,000 conditioned pace. Mark Herron photo.

Starting from post one, Great Seats (Wyatt Avenatti) pushed to protect position but yielded through the first turn to 4-5 Mistertenahkey (Marvin Luna) and then Mister Hercules (Chad Bell) moving to a :26.1 first quarter. Mister Hercules took over the lead into the stretch the first time, where Avenatti decided to bolt Great Seats out of third and to the top before clicking by a :55.2 half.

Great Seats’s brush to the lead forced Luna into a disadvantageous spot with Mistertenahkey. Luna had to move first over into the backstretch and march up towards Great Seats, and in his pursuit drew to near equal terms by three-quarters in 1:23.3.

But the overland route took its toll on Mistertenahkey spinning for home just as Great Seats flipped to another gear. Great Seats spurted upon straightening for the beam to a widening four length victory over JD Camden GB (Devon Tharps), who gave chase in second. Mistertenahkey settled for third.

A 4-year-old gelding by Sweet Lou, Great Seats won his seventh race from 40 career starts and has now banked $64,082 for Wyatt and Lane Avenatti. David Avenatti trains the $7.72 winner.

Live racing resumes at Oak Grove on Monday (May 20) at 3 p.m. (CDT). Free program pages for every race day, courtesy of TrackMaster, are available on the Oak Grove Racing website.