RBI Ramirez a Big Hit at Hollywood Night of Stars Race

The eighth race of the 19th Night of Stars program, held at Mardi Gras Racetrack and Entertainment Center near Miami, Florida, had one of the most closely contested and exciting finishes of the evening. The Night of Stars is a nationally simulcast event held twice yearly for the benefit of greyhound adoption groups, with sixteen races coming from sixteen different dog tracks featuring some of the top runners at those ovals. The Mardi Gras track, also known as Hollywood, is in the midst of running their 3/8ths of a mile stakes race known as the Hollywoodian, but their Night of Stars race was contested over the 1,650 foot 5/16ths of a mile course.

In the one hole was BBR Be Afraid, a two year old pup who had done some of his best work as of late, winning three of his four races this year within the last couple of weeks. Breaking from the two was RBI Ramirez, another youngster showing a couple of his half dozen triumphs in his most recent lines. From the three would come JC's Dawson, a strong late race runner who liked running on the inside; the four held Springwater Jab, dominant last year at Mardi Gras but not as much in 2007. Speed Rouser, always around the board, was in the five, with the six hole occupied by Starz Arnold, a neophyte just up from grade D in rapid fashion to A and seemingly in over his head with these. The two pre-race favorites were in the outside holes; Bohemian Brash in the seven showing eighteen wins in thirty Hollywood efforts and Rooftop Jabber in the eight, with two wins from that box in his last six lines.