Harwood has strong duo for Auburn

AUBURN, Wash. – Trainer Doris Harwood will send out a powerful one-two punch Sunday when she starts Del Rio Harbor and Noosito as leading contenders in the $50,000 Auburn Handicap at Emerald Downs. The meeting’s first stakes for 3-year-olds highlights a nine-race card beginning at 2 p.m. Pacific.

The Auburn attracted just five runners. Harwood has two of them, giving her a 40-percent chance, and that’s before one takes into account Del Rio Harbor’s dominance of Emerald’s 2-year-old division last summer, as well as Noosito’s vast promise as a full brother to Emerald Downs legend Noosa Beach.

The lineup for the 6 1/2-furlong Auburn, from the rail out, is: Del Rio Harbor, Redsolocup, Mebossman, Stikine Slough, and Noosito.

Del Rio Harbor ran away with local 2-year-old honors with his three stakes wins in 2013 and looked like an even better horse in his first start this year, when he rolled to victory in a no-conditions allowance sprint May 4. A speedy Harbor the Gold gelding, Del Rio Harbor was assigned a career-best Beyer Speed Figure of 73.

Del Rio Harbor and Noosito are the only stakes winners in the Auburn field, and among the challengers, only Mebossman and Stikine Slough have been stakes-placed. Meboosman finished second behind Del Rio Harbor in the Gottstein Futurity last September, while Stikine Slough was a distant third in the restricted Cahill Road Stakes on the same day as the Gottstein.

The outsider in the bunch, Redsolocup, could be sitting on a big effort for Jeff Metz, Emerald’s leading trainer. After a winter at Turf Paradise, where he took a $20,000 maiden claimer in January, Redsolocup has looked sharp in two starts at Emerald. He closed smartly to finish third behind Del Rio Harbor on May 4. He’ll make his first stakes appearance Sunday.

“The horse is coming into his own,” Metz said. “He’s always a been a no-nonsense horse – he won early on – but he has really stepped it up since his win on opening day. For him to run third to Del Rio Harbor last time, just a couple of lengths behind him, that was pretty impressive to me. Plus he came back on and galloped out really well. I’m looking forward to the Auburn because we get some extra distance, and we could get mud.”

Redsolocup chased Del Rio Harbor on a sloppy track in his last start. More rain is in the forecast for the Memorial Day weekend.

“His mother won in the mud, his parents both loved the mud,” Metz said of Redsolocup, a son of Demon Warlock (by Demons Begone). “If it’s coming up raining and sloppy, we should be in okay shape.”

Why Not Be Perfect sharp

Metz said he was thrilled by the winning effort turned in by Why Not Be Perfect last Sunday in the $50,000 Governor’s Handicap. Making his first start since October, the late-running Why Not Be Perfect rallied smartly to defeat the top handicap horses at Emerald while running 6 1/2 furlongs in a stakes-record 1:13.72.

Ignored in the betting despite a handful of stakes victories, Why Not Be Perfect and jockey Anne Sanguinetti went off at 28-1.

Why Not Be Perfect earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 96, the highest of his career and the top Beyer at the Emerald Downs meeting.

“The fact he had a nice freshening was big,” Metz said. “Everything kind of played out right. He’s a big horse, you can’t get him stopped, so being on the outside was a big advantage for him, and then once he made the lead in the stretch, I didn’t think he was going to get tired. Last year in that race, he was a closing third, and here we are a year later. Last year we made some mistakes with him, and then we had traffic trouble in the Longacres Mile. It was a long campaign. But he came back fresh.”