Metz can pad lead in standings

AUBURN, Wash. – Including Monday’s 11-race card, which begins at 2 p.m. Pacific, just 13 racing dates remain before Emerald Downs is closed for the winter. Rain pelted the track Saturday morning for the first time in weeks, a telltale sign that the season is waning.

Stryker Phd has clinched horse-of-the-meeting honors, Leslie Mawing has a hammerlock on another riding title, and Jeff Metz, in his second year in the Pacific Northwest, is well on his way to a second successive training title.

Metz began the weekend with a 45-34 lead over Frank Lucarelli and has two solid contenders on Monday’s card – Mr. Top Kat in race 6 and Lake Piru in race 10. Mr. Top Kat finished a close second at 10-1 in his first start for Metz on Aug. 15, while Lake Piru raced to a $31.60 upset in his last start Aug. 16.

Metz, who commutes to Emerald Downs from his home in Southern California, has begun to pare back his Emerald inventory as he prepares for the winter meeting at Turf Paradise.

“Instead of three, four, and five a day, we’re probably one or two a day the rest of the meet, depending on the races,” Metz said Saturday. “I have about 30 horses here, and if we can get half of them in before we head to Phoenix, that would work out pretty well.”

Metz nominated Among the Stars, whom he claimed recently at Del Mar, to next Sunday’s $50,000 Comcast SportsNet Stakes, a one-mile test for 3-year-old fillies and one of six added-money events for statebreds on Washington Cup Day. Among the Stars won a $40,000 starter allowance going a mile at Santa Anita in April, and Metz figures she can be competitive in the Comcast SportsNet with a similar effort.

Metz won five races on opening day to set the tone for a successful defense of the title he won in 2013 in his first year at Emerald Downs. Why Not Be Perfect captured the Governor’s Handicap in May, Metz’s lone stakes victory at the meeting. He won three stakes with E Z Kitty in 2013.

“The meet has gone well – it would be nice to go wire-to-wire, basically,” Metz said. “I met some new clients, and that’s been really good. I think people got to know me and saw that I would come back, so this year has been really good for acquiring new horses.”