Gibson tries to stay hot with Clubhouse Drama

Heading into Friday night’s card at Emerald Downs, Howie Gibson sat atop the local trainer standings with eight wins from 20 starts. Asked to identify the keys to his early success, Gibson replied, “I think I just have a good team – good grooms, good gallop boys, good owners.”

Also, he has a few good horses. One of them is Clubhouse Drama, a 5-year-old mare who will start in Saturday’s seventh race, a $25,000 claiming contest for females at six furlongs.

That’s a distance Clubhouse Drama really likes, as all six of her career wins have come at six furlongs. She’s 0 for 7 at other distances.

Clubhouse Drama enters Saturday’s race, which drew a field of seven, on a three-race winning streak, including two scores to kick off the 2026 Emerald meet.

Clubhouse Drama is moving up a bit in class for this contest, and Gibson is curious to see if she belongs.

“I think we’re just gonna find out,” Gibson said. “I think Tom Wenzel’s horse [Lapush] is pretty tough. If she runs back to her race last year, she’ll be really hard to beat.”

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That would be accurate. When Lapush, also a 5-year-old mare, was last seen at Emerald, she won a 6 1/2-furlong sprint by 6 1/4 lengths, earning a career-high 82 Beyer Speed Figure, which is the best last-out number in this field. She is a stakes winner whose stalking style should work well in a race with ample early speed. If it’s possible to find an argument against her, it’s that she hasn’t raced since early September and may need one to get her legs back under her.

Clubhouse Drama will be ridden by Blake Nunnally, perhaps the most pleasant surprise in the current jockey colony. He’d raced primarily on the state fair circuit until 2024, when he earned several mounts at Arapahoe, eventually doing the same at Turf Paradise during its 2025-26 meet. Heading into Friday, he ranked fourth among all Emerald jockeys with 12 wins, just two behind third-place Adrian Castellanos.

“Getting on a roll and racing down in Phoenix, he seems to have matured quite a bit,” Gibson said of Nunnally. “The two I mainly use are Adrian and Blake. If one can’t ride, hopefully I can get the other.”

Nunnally will have a decision to make with Clubhouse Drama when they break from post 3 on Saturday. Clubhouse Drama, like Simply Gracious on the far inside and Miss Dynamic on the far outside, typically likes to race on the lead, although Clubhouse Drama was able to rate effectively in an Oct. 6 win at Grants Pass.

“I think Blake just kind of has to play the break and see what happens,” Gibson said. “He did a really nice job of that with Knaughty Knight last time.”

Knaughty Knight won a six-furlong allowance last Sunday, going right to the lead and never looking back as the fourth choice in a six-horse field. Lapush may be the one to beat Saturday, but she’ll have to catch a few speedsters to cross the wire first.

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