Northville, MI — Iron horse Southwind Amazon ($3.80) dethroned a pair of sharp distaffers atop Northville Downs’ pacing ranks with a gutsy 1:53.2 effort in Saturday night’s (June 11) featured $14,000 Michigan Mini Series event at the Metro Detroit raceway.

Driver Art McIlmurray fired Southwind Amazon off of the starting car from post position seven, and the pair were joined by last week’s winner Princess Rockette (Justin Irvine) and her Princess Rougarou (Kody Massey). After a quarter-mile tussle for the lead, Southwind Amazon took over and tripped the beam to the opening quarter in 26.3.

The Paul Holzman trainee put up mid-race numbers of :55 and 1:24 before staving off late insurrection attempts by the two Princesses in the stretch, including a big late surge from Princess Rougarou just yards from the finish. Southwind Amazon was declared the winner — for the 118th time in his career — after a lengthy photo finish that showed him winning by a head.

Southwind Amazon (between horses, brown jacket) won for the 118th time in his career, keeping both Princess Rougarou (outside) and Princess Rockette (inside) at bay in a Michigan Mini Series event. Renae Parsons photo.

The time of 1:53.2 was just one-fifth of a second off of the fastest mile for the Spring meet.

Southwind Amazon, who has earned over $1.3 million in his career, is owned by Ameer Najor.

Northville Downs resumes live racing next Friday and Saturday night (June 17-18). Post time each racing night remains 7:30 p.m.