Another big day for Mawing?

AUBURN, Wash. – After a record-setting performance a week ago, jockey Leslie Mawing will have four more chances to reach the winner’s circle Friday, when Emerald Downs runs a seven-race card beginning at 6:45 p.m. Pacific.

Mawing won five consecutive races May 2, an unprecedented feat at Emerald Downs. He began the day with a runner-up finish on Sweet Saga, finished off the board on another mount, and then swept the final five races with Nancy Wake ($9.60), Our Pretty Woman ($8.40), He’s a Cruiser ($7.80), Spot On Babe ($3.60), and Making Fire ($9.20).

Mawing broke the Emerald Downs record of four wins in a row held by several riders and begins the new week in second place in the jockeys’ standings with 14 wins, four behind hot-riding leader Rocco Bowen.

Mawing’s best chance Friday might be with Del Siete Leguas in the featured race, a $12,500 claimer at six furlongs. Del Siete Leguas, making his first start in almost a year, has trained smartly for Blaine Wright. Mawing, the leading rider at Emerald in 2011, also should have big shots with Come On Cozzene in race 4 and Perusethenews in the nightcap.

◗ Owing to a horse shortage that affected field sizes last weekend, Emerald officials have canceled live racing May 23, a Friday twilight card that would have kicked off the Memorial Day weekend. Instead, there will be three days of racing during the holiday weekend, with Saturday, Sunday, and Monday cards beginning at 2 p.m. Pacific.

A total of 90 horses competed in 17 races last Saturday and Sunday – an average of 5.29 starters per race. Sunday’s card was so hard to fill when entries were taken last Thursday that horsemen were told to come back the following day and try it again. The end result – an eight-race card with fields of 5, 5, 4, 5, 6, 6, 5 and 6 starters – was well short of what Emerald usually offers on a Sunday afternoon.

◗ An already-crowded jockey colony added another member this week when David G. Lopez began accepting mounts. Lopez finished fourth in the 2013 Emerald standings with 52 wins.

◗ Del Rio Harbor was assigned a Beyer Speed Figure of 73 for his victory Sunday in a no-conditions allowance for 3-year-olds. The leading 2-year-old at Emerald last year, when he captured the season-ending Gottstein Futurity, Del Rio Harbor ran 5 1/2 furlongs on a sloppy track in 1:03.65 to defeat Kenai King, his Doris Harwood-trained stablemate, by 1 1/4 lengths.

Correction: A previous version of this article misstated the name of a stakes Del Rio Harbor won last year. It was the Gottstein Futurity, not the Dennis Dodge.