Emerald: Boeing Handicap nice spot for Zenovit
AUBURN, Wash. – Zenovit, the champion 3-year-old filly at Emerald Downs in 2010, will try to get back on the winning beam Saturday in the $50,000 Boeing Handicap. The seventh race on an eight-race card, the one-mile Boeing attracted a strong field of nine fillies and mares. First post is 2 p.m. Pacific.
Zenovit has raced once this year, returning from a layoff of more than eight months to finish sixth in the 6 1/2-furlong Washington State Legislators Handicap on June 12. She has worked three times since then, with trainer Larry Ross tightening the screws for her first start around two turns since last September, when she raced to an impressive victory in the British Columbia Oaks at Hastings.
Zenovit won just one other race in 2010, but it was big one: the nine-furlong Washington Oaks at Emerald. She was narrowly beaten in the one-mile Irish Day Handicap, and again in the one-mile John & Kitty Fletcher Stakes. Overall, she has won 4 of 12 starts and earned $118,035 for owners Dana Claxton and Riverbend Stable. With regular rider Ricky Frazier still sidelined because of head injuries suffered last fall, Javier Matias has taken the call on Zenovit this summer. They’ll break from post 7. If the race unfolds according to form, Zenovit will track the leaders from three or four lengths behind before launching her bid at the top of the stretch.
The pace should be moderate. You Me and Ema B, who won the May 15 Hastings Handicap in front-running style but was last in the Washington State Legislators, is a candidate to grab the early lead, a prospect made more likely when You Me and Ema B drew the inside post position. Sis’s Sis has two stakes victories at Saturday’s distance, both from just off the pace. Sweet Nellie Brown won her only one-mile start on the front end. But none of the three is likely to get carried away in the early stages, and a dawdling pace could make things difficult for the handful of deep closers in the field.
Rewritten, who rallied to finish second in the Washington State Legislators, will be rolling from the back in her first route attempt of 2011. She captured a 1 1/16-mile stakes race last summer but was well beaten by Zenovit in the Washington Oaks. Fifie’s Fantasy, Hard Way Ten, Eyes On the Prize, and Dream Sweeper complete the field.