Find Your Spot aims for fourth straight in Irish Day

AUBURN, Wash. – If Find Your Spot is anything like her mother – and all signs indicate that she is – she will be a formidable contender Sunday in the $50,000 Irish Day Handicap at Emerald Downs. A one-mile test for 3-year-old fillies, the Irish Day is the eighth race on a 10-race card that starts at 2 p.m. Pacific.

Find Your Spot has won her past three starts – one at Golden Gate, one at Santa Anita, and then June 14 at Emerald Downs, where she rallied from just off the pace to take a first-level allowance at 6 1/2 furlongs. She will tackle a route for the first time Sunday, and that’s where her mother comes in.

Find Your Spot’s dam, Sudden Departure, won a one-mile stakes race at Emerald Downs in 2007 for trainer Jim Penney. Six years later, Penney and his Where We At stable partners zeroed in on one of her foals, Find Your Spot, claiming her for $25,000 out of her racing debut at Emerald and taking her to Golden Gate for the winter.

In quick order, Find Your Spot won a $32,000 maiden claimer, ran third in a $40,000 starter allowance, and launched into her current three-race winning streak in late January. Claiming Find Your Spot has already turned into a profitable investment – she has earned $72,320 through seven starts, with the hint of a bright future ahead.

Kay Cooper, who runs day-to-day operations for Penney, said the decision to claim Find Your Spot was about more than just fond memories of the dam. Cooper said they were enthused about the fledgling sire Nationhood, a son of Cherokee Run who stands at Blue Ribbon Farm in Buckley, Wash. Find Your Spot is from Nationhood’s first crop.

“I had watched her work, and we liked the individual horse,” Cooper said of Find Your Spot. “I liked the dam. We trained her, and she had a lot of heart. But I see a lot of Nationhood in the horse, and we are pretty high on Nationhood right now. I can’t wait to go two turns. I think the horse is going to be a whole lot better.”

Find Your Spot’s chief nemesis in the Irish Day is likely to be Chu and You, Emerald’s champion 2-year-old filly in 2013. Chu and You is a speedy front-runner and will have to be caught.

“My filly is very controllable, and I think any way we want her to lie, she’s going to,” Cooper said. “There is a lot of speed in the race, and Chu and You has a ton of ability. She’s obviously one we have to run down.”