Sunday’s $50,000 Seattle Slew Stakes drew a large field of 10 sophomore colts and geldings to battle one mile in the final stepping stone to the Emerald Downs Derby next month.<\/p>\n
Sharkzilla, upset winner of the Auburn Stakes at six furlongs, and Riser, dominant winner of the Coca-Cola Stakes at 6½ furlongs, head the local contingent, while California shippers More Power to Him, Perfect Come Back and Ucanthankmelater add mystery and intrigue to the race.<\/p>\n
More Power to Him is the most proven of the shippers, and perhaps the horse to beat Sunday. Conditioned by Faith Taylor for owner\/breeder Brett Mason, the California-bred colt by Slew’s Tiznow has compiled a 3-3-1 record in 11 starts and tops the field with $160,653 in earnings. He also is a proven router, amassing three two-turn victories on Golden Gate’s Tapeta surface, and has earned checks in all five of his stakes appearances including seconds (via DQ) in the $200,000 El Camino Real Derby (Grade 3) and $100,000 California Derby.<\/p>\n
Although More Power to Him has never raced on dirt, he gets Rocco Bowen to ride and, despite his lofty credentials, gets 2 pounds from Riser and Sharkzilla on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Perfect Come Back also has never raced on dirt, but the Pleasantly Perfect gelding has banged out a series of steady route efforts for Tim McCanna at Golden Gate. Ucanthankmelater has two wins on dirt, including a recent $20,000 claimer at Santa Anita, but is stepping up in class Sunday.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, none of the three shippers have speed, and Riser could again be stepping into a favorable pace scenario in the Slew. No doubt the Mizzen Mast colt is fast, earning Beyers of 86 and 80 while easily winning a 5½ furlong allowance race and the 6½ furlong Coca-Cola. But as we saw with 3-year-old filly Risque’s Legacy in the Irish Day Stakes last week, an additional 1½ furlongs can be difficult to get.<\/p>\n
Blaine Wright, who already has three stakes win at the meet, sends out Riser and Aqua Frio in the Seattle Slew. Those two dominated the Coca-Cola with Riser winning by 5¼ lengths in 1:15.26 while Aqua Frio was second by 2¾ lengths. Incidentally, Wright’s stakes wins have been blowouts, with 3-year-old fillies Alliford Bay and Top Quality winning the Seattle Stakes and Irish Day Stakes by 3¼ and 3¾ lengths, respectively, and Riser winning the Coca-Cola by 5¼.<\/p>\n
• The Seattle Slews Stakes goes as Race 7 at 5:09 p.m. It remains the only stakes in America named after the 1977 Triple Crown winner.<\/p>\n
• More Power to Him is stabled with Kay Cooper at Emerald Downs.<\/p>\n
• Perfect Come Back and More Power to Him drew the No. 9 & 10 post-positions, which are a combined 0-8 in one mile races this season.<\/p>\n
• More Power to Him is one of three $100,000 earners out of Pundit, a daughter of Beau Genius who has produced 10 winners including Beach Blonde ($316,244), Formula Gold ($102,868) and More Power to Him ($160,653).<\/p>\n
• Betting favorites are 3-for-9 in stakes this season and average field size is 7.7 horses.The field for the 41st running of the $50,000 Seattle Slew Stakes for 3-year-old colts & geldings: 1-Distortedatthebar, Julien Couton, 117 pounds; 2-Aqua Frio, Kevin Orozco, 118; 3-Riser, Eswan Flores, 124; 4-Marquee Marini, J C Estrada, 118; 5-Ucanthankmelater, Jose Zunino, 118; 6-Sharkzilla, Erick Lopez, 124; 7-Rifle Gernade, Eliska Kubinova, 118; 8-Candy for Three, Isaias Enriquez, 118; 9-Perfect Come Back, Javier Matias, 118; 10-More Power to Him, Rocco Bowen, 122.<\/p>\n
Four days of racing this week<\/strong><\/p>\n This week includes an extra day of racing with Monday’s annual Fireworks Spectacular capping a four-day race week.<\/p>\n This week’s schedule:<\/p>\n • Friday, 7 races, 6:30 p.m.<\/p>\n • Saturday, 7 races, 2 p.m.<\/p>\n • Sunday, 9 races, 2 p.m.<\/p>\n • Monday, 9 races, 5 p.m. (Fireworks 10 p.m.)<\/p>\n The weather forecast is perfect throughout the week: Friday, 80 and clear; Saturday, 78 and clear; Sunday, 77 and clear; Monday, 74 and clear.<\/p>\n Reminder there is no live racing on Tuesday, July 4, although the facility will be open for simulcast racing.<\/p>\n Finish lines<\/strong><\/p>\n Friday marks the midway point of the 2017 season—Day 36 of the 72-day meeting. … Blaine Wright has a winner on six of the last seven cards and 10 of the last 14. Wright ranks No. 1 with 23 wins including three stakes wins. Blame It On Royce, Kiss My Lulu and Top Quality all earned career-high Beyers with victories last week, and Top Quality ran the fastest mile of the meet, 1:34.88, while winning the Irish Day Stakes by 3¾ lengths. … A pair of 2-year-old races are up this week: Saturday’s fourth drew a field of eight maiden special weight fillies at five furlongs and Sunday’s first race has six 2-year-old colts and geldings at five furlongs. In the latter, first-timer Sippin Fire (Harbor the Gold–Bahati) is a full brother to Gottstein Futurity winners Couldabenthewhisky and Del Rio Harbor. … Kevin Krigger has returned to action and picked up one victory in six mounts last week at Pleasanton. … Modern heads the field in Saturday’s $75,000 Lieutenant Governors’ Handicap on Canada Day at Hastings Racecourse. … Entries for Monday’s July 3 Emerald Downs’ card will be drawn Friday. … Wine At Nine in Friday’s feature for $25,000\/$22,500 claimers, and Hello Brown in Saturday’s fifth race for $3,500 starter allowances, each bid to become the meet’s first four-time winners. … In the jockeys’ race, Rocco Bowen begins the week with a 61-32 lead on apprentice Kevin Orozco and remains on pace to surpass his 110 wins in 2016. … The Emerald Downs Soccer Club, led by Matt Dinerman’s hat trick, blasted Sno-Valley 11-6 Wednesday in indoor soccer action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sunday’s $50,000 Seattle Slew Stakes drew a large field of 10 sophomore colts and geldings to battle one mile in the final stepping stone to the Emerald Downs Derby next month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":29186,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-29185","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\/29185"}],"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=29185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29185"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=29185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}