The thunder of hooves and the roar of the crowd return tonight as Emerald Downs opens for its 15th season.
The Auburn track will feature 89 days of thoroughbred racing, with 31 stakes races, including the Northwest’s richest prize, the 75th running of the $250,000 Longacres Mile on Aug. 22.
Last season, jockey Gallyn Mitchell, astride the Howard Belvoir-trained Assessment, defeated a slew of out-of-state horses – including California invader and odds-on favorite Awesome Gem – to seize the Mile.
Assessment was the first horse to break from the outside No. 12 post position to win the Grade III jewel since Coldwater captured the inaugural Mile back in 1935.
Assessment finished the 2009 meeting with three stakes wins, along with seconds in three other starts. The horse earned $257,000 in purses for Tice Ranch Stables.
This year the combination of Belvoir, Mitchell and Assessment – the Horse of the Meeting and Top Older Horse for 2009 – will be back to pursue another Mile conquest. The last horse to repeat as Mile champion was Simple Majestic in 1988 and 1989.
Belvoir, who also trained the 2008 Mile winner in Wasserman, saddled 50 winners, including four stakes champions in 2009. He hopes Assessment will be fully recovered from September surgery to remove a bone chip. The 5-year-old Jump Start-sired gelding is scheduled to make his meet debut in the Seattle Handicap on May 16.
“He’s worked out twice now, and that’s pretty good for all the weather we’ve been having,” Belvoir said. “We’re trying to protect him. Hopefully, he’ll be ready for that first stake race. But that might be pushing it.”
Assessment seemed to be ahead of schedule in his recovery and gradually picking up speed on the track.
“I won’t work him out when the track is bad,” said Belvoir, who has been trying to get Assessment some track time every six days. “There is training fit and racing fit. And that division is going to be pretty tough this year.”
Trainer Tim McCanna also will be back to vie for his fourth straight training title. McCanna won his ninth Emerald Downs training title in 2009 with 63 wins, just shy of his own single-season record of 66, which he set in 2008. McCanna is the track’s most successful trainer with 707 wins and also is first in all-time earnings with $6,387,182.
“I’ve been home all winter getting ready,” McCanna said. “We’re hungry and ready.”
McCanna, who trains more than 80 horses, is hoping to break through this season with Rooster City. The 4-year-old gelding finished second in the Auburn and Tacoma handicaps, as well as the Emerald Derby, last year.
Also vying to make a little history this meeting will be jockey Ricky Frazier, who won last year’s riding title with 155 victories. Frazier easily outdistanced the rest of the pack to get his fifth title in seven years. Frazier, who had 11 stakes wins and $1,492,455 in earnings in 2009, is the regular rider for four of the track’s division winners last year – Ladyledue, Top-3-Year-Old Filly; Winning Machine, Top-3-Year-Old Male; Knight Raider, Top Juvenile Filly; and Atta Boy Roy, Top Sprinter and Top Washington-Bred.
Trainer Doris Harwood will look to top a stellar 2009 season in which she had 12 stakes wins and set a state record in earnings with $931,916. Harwood needs just three stakes wins to break the track’s all-time record, 42, set by Bud Klokstad. Harwood is sixth overall on the wins list for trainers with 349.
First post is 6 p.m. today. Opening night will feature the opportunity for fans to win one of 40 LCD flatscreen TVs.
Racing will continue at 2 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.
Thursday racing will return June 10, with first post at 6 p.m.
Stakes racing begins with the Hastings Handicap on May 2.
