For the Reporter<\/p>\n
Blaine Wright, who led all trainers with 11 stakes wins last year, will be front and center when stakes action begins at Emerald Downs.<\/p>\n
Wright sends out Bella Mia in the $50,000 Seattle Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at six furlongs. The Seattle, which drew a field of seven, is the first of 29 stakes to be run in 2018 and season debut for Bella Mia, state and track champion 2-year-old filly of 2017.<\/p>\n
Owned by John and Janene Maryanski of Auburn, the Washington-bred daughter of Harbor the Gold-Bella Campana was virtually untouchable while reeling off four straight wins last year, including triumphs in the Angie C Stakes, Barbara Shinpoch and Washington Cup Juvenile Fillies. Her overall mark is 4-0-0 in five starts with earnings of $91,523.<\/p>\n
Bella Mia boasts a strong series of workouts for her return, including a bullet six furlongs in 1:10 4\/5 from the gate on May 6.<\/p>\n
Wright’s 11 stakes wins last year were just one off the track record set by Doris Harwood in 2007 and 2009. The 43-year-old trainer also has built a strong stable of runners at Golden Gate, and has stakes action this weekend in California and Canada: Bronze Warrior, owned by Joe and Lola Sample, runs in Sunday’s $75,000 Alcatraz for 3-year-olds at one mile turf at Golden Gate, and Alliford Bay, owned by Peter Redekop, is 6-5 in Monday’s $50,000 Vancouver Sun for fillies and mares at 6 ½ furlongs at Hastings Racecourse.<\/p>\n
Diamonds R and Brilliant Bird, first and second-place finishers in a May 5 allowance race at 5 1\/2 furlongs, have something that Bella Mia does not–a race over the track this season.<\/p>\n
Spot On and Ima Happy Cat both jump from maiden special weight victories into stakes company. Spot On is a full sister to Find Your Spot, state champion 3-year-old filly of 2014, and Ima Happy Cat is out of a dam, Infernal McGoon, track and state champion older filly or mare of 2004.<\/p>\n
Stay in Grace, a double stakes winner at Portland Meadows, and Gold Supply, runner-up to Spot On last month, add depth to the field.<\/p>\n
Stakes action gets rolling in earnest over the Memorial Day weekend. The $50,000 Auburn Stakes tests 3-year-old at six furlongs on Sunday, May 27, and the $50,000 Hastings Stakes for older fillies and mares at six furlongs is Monday, May 28.<\/p>\n
The field for the $50,000 Seattle Stakes, 3-year-old fillies, six furlongs: 1-Stay in Grace, Gary Wales, 116 pounds; 2-Ima Happy Cat, Rocco Bowen, 118; 3-Spot On, Austin Solis, 116; 4-Diamonds R, Leonel Camacho-Flores, 116; 5-Brilliant Bird, Kevin Orozco, 116; 6-Bella Mia, Julien Couton, 120; 7-Gold Supply, Alex Anaya, 116.<\/p>\n
LINEUP<\/strong><\/p>\n Saturday, May 19<\/strong><\/p>\n 2 p.m. (8 races)<\/p>\n Preakness 3:48 p.m.<\/p>\n HawkFest<\/p>\n Budweiser Clydesdales<\/p>\n Sunday, May 20<\/strong><\/p>\n 2 p.m. (9 races)<\/p>\n $50,000 Seattle Stakes<\/p>\n Exotic Animal Races (After Races 4, 5, 6)<\/p>\n Notes:<\/strong> Betting favorites are only 5-42 the last two weeks (11.9%), and odds-on favorite are only 5-17 (29.4) this season…There are 951 horses on the grounds, up 22 from last week and down 18 from the same day last year. … Rocco Bowen has at least one on all eight cards to date, and began the week with an eight-win lead atop the jockeys’ standings … Daytona Beach goes for his second straight win at the meet and fourth straight victory overall in Saturday’s featured seventh race at 6½ furlongs for 3-year-olds and up which have started for a claiming price of $10,000 or less in 2017 or 2018. The eight-horse field also includes Iron Rob, Thorn Legacy, Twirling Cinnamon, Mixo, There’s No Doubt, Alley Boss and Royal Privacy. … The Budweiser Clydesdales will be on the track for a 10-minute showing immediately following Saturday’s simulcast of the Preakness Stakes. The Preakness will be between races 4 and 5 at Emerald Downs, with post time 3:48 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" First of 29 stakes goes to the post Sunday <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":34636,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-34635","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\/34635"}],"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=34635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34635"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=34635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}