This could be last call for 10-year-old Assessment

AUBURN, Wash. – A former Kentucky Derby contender will meet a Longacres Mile winner in a $12,500 claimer Friday night at Emerald Downs, and it’s likely that neither horse will be favored. That role could fall to Memphis Mobster, a potential solo front-runner in a five-horse field. First post for the seven-race card is 6:45 p.m. Pacific.

Carving, the former Kentucky Derby hopeful, has been in a steady free fall since the autumn of 2012, when he captured the $100,000 Real Quiet Stakes at Hollywood Park, while Assessment, the hero of the 2009 Longacres Mile at Emerald Downs, has been running exclusively in claiming races this year at age 10. His outing Friday could be his final start at Emerald Downs.

“I’m trying to find a home for him,” said Howard Belvoir, who has trained Assessment throughout his career and assumed ownership of the horse this year. “But he’s having fun right now, and I’ll probably bring him back next year if I’ve still got him, just because he likes to run.”

Assessment has made 60 starts and earned $534,970, most of it for former owner Lou Tice, who died in 2012. All 11 of his victories have come at Emerald – he is 0 for 17 at other venues – and his disdain for other surfaces might dissuade Belvoir from taking him to Portland Meadows for the meet that begins Oct. 12. Of more immediate concern is his one-mile test Friday. Assessment finished last in a $15,000 claimer in his most recent start, and Belvoir isn’t sure why.

“I don’t know what happened. They changed the racetrack and put a lot of sand on it, and I just don’t think he handled it. I don’t know. He had no excuses,” Belvoir said. “But he’s been a great horse, making over $500,000 despite having some major problems. Nobody knows he had a broken sesamoid behind when I got him. Then he pulled a suspensory. To come through those injuries and still run good, he’s been a very durable horse.”

Carving, 4, is still a pup compared with Assessment, but Carving also has been trending in the wrong direction. Trainer Bob Baffert abandoned his Derby plans after Carving was outrun in the Grade 2 San Felipe Stakes at Santa Anita in March 2013. Two months later, Carving surfaced in an allowance race at Emerald Downs for trainer Mike Puhich. He finished fourth in a $12,500 claiming sprint in his last start.