Allowance field difficult to separate

With a field of six that includes four last-out maiden winners and two others who were beaten less than two lengths in their latest starts, the challenge facing handicappers in Saturday’s competitive allowance feature over six furlongs at Emerald Downs is accurately projecting which horse has the greatest potential for improvement.

One such prospect is the Debbie Peery-trained Our Boy Roy, who has two wins from three career starts. However, the 4-year-old has not started since February 2023. The gelding earned solid Beyer Speed Figures during his brief sophomore campaign and may well do better with added maturity.

Trainer Blaine Wright will saddle two of the six starters, each of whom won a maiden race in his last start. El Bromista is a 4-year-old son of Practical Joke who chased a white-hot pace and managed to win by a neck as the favorite versus maiden special weight company on May 11. His Beyer Speed Figure of 54 was comparatively slow, perhaps a function of all the contenders being close to the 43.44-second half-mile split and then collectively tiring from their early efforts.

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Wright’s other starter is Fast Times, who was a winner over $25,000 maiden-claiming company on May 4. As a 3-year-old, Fast Times will sacrifice considerable maturity to his older foes.

“Both horses came out running and certainly we look forward to this next start,” said Wright, who expressed “hope that they can come back and make their first showing against winners a good one.”

Among the probable pacesetters is Peter Flies, trained by Charles Essex. The speed merchant just raced head to head up front through splits of 21.38 and 43.86 en route to a second-place finish May 26 behind Naval Escort, who came from last to win.

Others scheduled for Saturday’s top event at Emerald Downs are recent maiden winner Son of Thunder, trained by Joe Toye, and It’s Turbo, trained by Frank Lucarelli.

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Son of Thunder won a maiden race on April 25 at Turf Paradise in the solid time of 1:08.67. The success was long overdue for not only did the gelding once sell for $475,000, he also is now 6 and hadn’t raced since July 2023.

It’s Turbo also rates a considerable chance Saturday. The early pace should be to his liking, and they will go a half-furlong farther than on May 11 when It’s Turbo came within a neck of second-place Peter Flies in allowance company.

Saturday’s Emerald card has a first post of 1:30 p.m. Pacific.

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