For the Reporter

Margo’s Gift, Easy Going Cecil and Gallon – who staged a dramatic finish in the Pepsi-Cola Handicap – all are nominated for Sunday’s $50,000 Tacoma Handicap at Emerald Downs.

The one-mile Tacoma is the first route test of the season for 3-year-olds on the road to the $100,000 Emerald Derby on Sept. 1.

In the 6½-furlong Pepsi-Cola Handicap on June 1, Margo’s Gift surged past Easy Going Cecil and Gallon in the final yards for his first victory of 2008. Owned by Elttaes Stable and trained by Doris Harwood, Margo’s Gift already has won four stakes races, with earnings of $283,664. The Polish Gift gelding is winless in two distance races, however, but he did run third behind Smarty Deb and Gallon in the 2007 Gottstein Futurity.

Easy Going Cecil ran a tenacious race in the Pepsi-Cola. Trained by Blaine Wright for Due Diligence Racing, Easy Going Cecil set the pace to deep stretch, refused to let Gallon get past, but finally yielded to Margo’s Gift at the wire.

Gallon has finished second and third in two stakes outings this year, and the Kentucky-bred by Victory Gallop could improve with the added distance. Last year, Gallon won the one-mile WTBA Lads and finished second in the 1 1/16-mile Gottstein.

Fear No Evil, the front-running winner of the Auburn Stakes on May 11, also is nominated to the Tacoma, as is Jaton Carries On, an unbeaten Kentucky-bred gelding by Jump Start.

Other nominees are Capt. J Sparrow, Jimmy Da Brick, Medicine Creek, Red Redding, Royal Hudson, Sea Speaker and Trtium Bill.