{"id":14610,"date":"2011-04-14T19:28:32","date_gmt":"2011-04-15T02:28:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spiken.wpengine.com\/news\/opening-day-at-emerald-downs-friday-horse-racing\/"},"modified":"2016-10-23T03:30:33","modified_gmt":"2016-10-23T10:30:33","slug":"opening-day-at-emerald-downs-friday-horse-racing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/sports\/opening-day-at-emerald-downs-friday-horse-racing\/","title":{"rendered":"Opening day at Emerald Downs Friday | Horse Racing"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/strong>The Northwest\u2019s premier racing venue springs into action Friday\u00a0when Emerald Downs<\/a> begins its 16th season of Thoroughbred racing at 6 p.m.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The 82-day meet continues through Sept. 25, with first post 6 p.m. Fridays and 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Thursday racing will be added July 14 to Aug. 25.<\/div>\n<\/p>\n

Sixty-six horses are entered opening night, an average of 8.25 per race, on the eight-race program. Emerald Downs also has nine races Saturday and 10 on Sunday for a total of 27 races opening weekend compared to 23 races opening weekend last year.<\/div>\n<\/p>\n

The 76th running of the $200,000 Longacres Mile on Aug. 21 tops a 29-race stakes schedule worth over $1.5 million, with the $50,000 Hastings Handicap for fillies and mares leading off the stakes schedule on May 15.<\/div>\n<\/p>\n

Defending Longacres Mile champion and 2010 Horse of the Meeting Noosa Beach heads a handicap horse division that begins with the $50,000 Governor\u2019s Handicap on May 22. Other top returning older horses include Assessment, Hollywood Harbor, Koala Beach, Margo\u2019s Gift, Peaceful Reign, Saratoga Boot and Winning Machine.<\/div>\n<\/p>\n

Two other fans favorites also will return in 2011. Wasserman, the track\u2019s all-time leading earner with $514,722, is back as a 9-year-old, and West Seattle Boy, Emerald Downs\u2019 all-time leader in wins with 18, has resumed training as a 12-year-old.<\/div>\n<\/p>\n

Ten-time champion Tim McCanna, the leading trainer in 2010 with 63 wins, is expected to contend for his record fifth straight Emerald Downs training championship. And Doris Harwood, first all-time with 48 stakes wins, has another powerful lineup of runners led by Noosa Beach, who begins the season needing two stakes victories to tie Handy N Bold\u2019s track record of 10 stakes wins set in 1999-2003.<\/div>\n<\/p>\n

Ricky Frazier, last year\u2019s leading jockey with 114 wins, begins the season sidelined while awaiting a doctor\u2019s clearance to resume his riding career. The leading rider at Emerald Downs five of the last seven seasons, Frazier hasn\u2019t ridden since October, when he sustained a concussion riding at Fresno, Calif.<\/div>\n<\/p>\n

Gallyn Mitchell, No. 1 all-time with 1,252 wins at Emerald Downs, and Juan Gutierrez, third with 778, head a jockey colony that includes Portland Meadows champion Joe Crispin, Portland runner-up Javier Matias, and veterans A.L. Gutierrez, Deborah Hoonan-Trujillo and Jose Zunino. Pedro Terrero, the leading apprentice last year with 65 wins, returns as a journeyman, and Leslie Mawing, second with 86 wins in 2007, returns after spending the last three years riding in Northern California.<\/div>\n<\/p>\n

Emerald Downs also has upgraded its timing system to hundredths of a second to accommodate the introduction of Quarter Horse racing. Beginning next week the track plans to card approximately two Quarter Horse races a week, leading up to the $60,000 Bank of America Emerald Downs Challenge Championship on Sept. 4.<\/div>\n<\/p>\n

Notes: Emerald Downs will give away 50 flat-screen TV sets on opening night. Drawings for the 32-inch LCD sets will be held after each race in the winner\u2019s circle. Emerald Downs Facebook followers will be eligible to win a 51st TV in a special drawing after the fifth race.<\/div>\n<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Northwest\u2019s premier racing venue springs into action Friday when Emerald Downs begins its 16th season of Thoroughbred racing at 6 p.m.
\nThe 82-day meet continues through Sept. 25, with first post 6 p.m. Fridays and 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Thursday racing will be added July 14 to Aug. 25.<\/p>\n

The Northwest\u2019s premier racing venue springs into action Friday when Emerald Downs begins its 16th season of Thoroughbred racing at 6 p.m.
\nThe 82-day meet continues through Sept. 25, with first post 6 p.m. Fridays and 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Thursday racing will be added July 14 to Aug. 25.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":14611,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-14610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14610"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14610"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=14610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}