Of all the year-end honors, Top Claimer figures to be among the most hotly contested categories of 2017.<\/p>\n
Two of the top contenders for the award, Rockport Birdie and Wine At Nine, are both in action this weekend at Emerald Downs.<\/p>\n
Rockport Birdie, the meet’s only six-time winner, is the 3-1 morning line favorite in Sunday’s ninth race for $5,000 claiming fillies and mares at one mile. A victory would mean a seven-race winning streak, and she also would finish the season No. 1 in wins – traditionally a big factor for winning the Top Claimer award.<\/p>\n
Wine At Nine, 5-1-1 in seven starts at the meet, is the 2-1 morning line favorite in Saturday’s $13,000 starter allowance for 3-year-olds and up at one mile. It marks the first route test this year for the $5-year-old Divine Park gelding, 7-2-1 in his last 10 starts here beginning with a victory in a rock-bottom $2,500 claimer in August 2016.<\/p>\n
Incidentally, Vince Gibson trains both Rockport Birdie and Wine At Nine, so excuse him if he takes a pass on choosing between the two. The actual voting is up to track personnel, officials and media.<\/p>\n
Other top contenders for Top Claimer:<\/p>\n
Exit Sixty Slew: 5-0-1 in six starts, beginning with a victory vs. $8,000 claimers and culminating with a triumph over 2-5 favorite Citizen Kitty in the Washington Cup Filly or Mare.<\/p>\n
Emmett Park: 4-4-0-0 in four starts. 6-year-old gelding capped a perfect season with a last-to-first victory for a $40,000 claiming price last week. Beyers this season of 87, 87, 78 and 87.<\/p>\n
Mike Man’s Gold: 4-0-2 in six starts, reeled off four straight wins beginning in the $10,000 claiming ranks and ending with a victory vs. $40,000 optional claimers. Also finished a close third in the Muckleshoot Tribal Classic.<\/p>\n
Jerre to Carrie: 4-0-0 in five starts, and goes for win No. 5 in Saturday’s eighth race vs. $40,000 claiming fillies and mares.<\/p>\n
Image of Truth: 4-1-0 in 11 starts at the meet, goes for win No. 5 in Sunday’s fourth race for $5,000 claimers.<\/p>\n
Maurice Code: 4-0-0 in five starts, reeling off four straight wins in the $7,500-$20,000 range.<\/p>\n
Oh Marvelous Me: 4-0-2 in six starts, one of four on this list trained by Blaine Wright.<\/p>\n
Party Pooper: 4-0-0 in seven starts, hard-hitting 5-year-old has seven wins here the last two seasons.<\/p>\n
Finish lines<\/strong><\/p>\n Blaine Wright needs just $933 in earnings to have the second highest total in track history. Doris Harwood with $931,916 in 2009 is No. 1 followed by Jim Penney with $793,760 in 2005 and Wright with $792,827. … Wright has three horses entered this weekend including Washington Cup Sophomore Stakes winner Pulpits Power in Sunday’s $21,000 allowance feature for 3-year-olds. … The following horses are all four-time winners this season for Wright: Bella Mia, Emmett Park, Maurice Code and Oh Marvelous Me, and Exit Sixty Slew and First Heritage have each won three races. … Wright also has been red-hot with jockeys Julien Couton (17-39), Kevin Orozco (13-27) and Eswan Flores (7-11). … Recent allowance winner and Emerald Downs Derby fourth-place finisher Monydontspenitself will be shipped to trainer Mark Glatt in California, trainer Kay Cooper said. … The richest racehorse in Washington history – Heza Dasha Fire – continued his winning ways recently at Los Alamitos. Owned by Don and Kathy Meneely of Kennewick, Heza Dasha Fire rolled to a 1¾-length victory in the Grade 1 Go Man Go Handicap and now has career earnings of $1,989,237. A 5-year-old gelding by Walk Thru Fire-Dasha Freda, Heza Dasha Fire is 14-4-0 in 19 starts with eight stakes wins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Of all the year-end honors, Top Claimer figures to be among the most hotly contested categories of 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":30454,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-30453","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\/30453"}],"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=30453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30453"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=30453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}