Lads victory propels Muncey to Gottstein Futurity

Trainer Howard Belvoir said that Muncey came out of his narrow win on Sunday over Harbors Ruler in the $45,500 WTBOA Lads for 2-year-old colts and geldings in good shape and would be pointed to the $100,000 Gottstein Futurity on Sept. 22. The Futurity is the closing-day feature at Emerald.

The way the Kentucky-bred son of Munnings finished with a rush in the six-furlong Lads he could thrive going around two turns in the mile and a sixteenth Futurity.

“He’s a nice colt but still doesn’t know anything,” said Belvoir. “He broke a step slow but had a good trip the rest of the way. I think he will get better when he stretches out.”

Muncey was ridden by Javier Matias, who also rode Cakewalk to a front-running victory in the $58,500 Barbara Shinpoch Stakes for 2-year-old fillies on Sunday. The Kentucky-bred daughter of Majesticperfection is trained by Blaine Wright.

“She came out of the race great, but she has been going strong for a long time so we’re probably going to give her a break,” said Wright. “We’ll take her down to Northern California and gear her up for a 3-year-old campaign at Emerald. She runs on anything, so hopefully we’ll get a race or two on Tapeta before she comes back here.”

Also on Sunday, Crest Drive gave trainer Frank Lucarelli his 1,000th win at Emerald. The all-time leading trainer at Emerald, Lucarelli took hitting the landmark number in stride.

“It feels good to get it,” said Lucarelli. “When I got to 999 I was hoping it wouldn’t take long to get there. It happened pretty quickly, though, and now it’s back to work.”

Lucarelli is well on his way to winning his sixth training title at Emerald. He has won 1,786 races in his career for earnings of $22,466,904. He also won the seventh race with Legitimate Cause on Sunday, bringing his number of wins at Emerald to 1,001 for earnings of $10,977,161.

◗ Friday’s feature is a $10,000 starter race with a $15,000 claiming option. Post time for the first of seven races is 6:30 p.m.

If City Steel makes it to and out of the gate, he could be a handful in the mile and a sixteenth race, which drew seven horses.

He doesn’t want to sprint and is coming off a fast-closing third at the same level in his first start at Emerald for trainer Charles Essex. Prior to shipping to Emerald from Hastings he was scratched twice. In one instance he sat down in the gate. In the other he flipped just before being loaded. Prior to his antics he had won three-straight races, all for trainer Dave Milburn.