Point Piper targets Longacres Mile repeat

Point Piper will be back to try to repeat in the Grade 3, $200,000 Longacres Mile at Emerald Downs on Aug. 13.

With Mario Gutierrez aboard last year, Point Piper came from well back to win by 4 3/4 lengths while establishing a track record of 1:32.90 for the one-mile distance.

Point Piper hasn’t won since, but he was the runner-up to California Chrome in the $180,000 Winter Challenge at Los Alamitos on Dec. 17, and he also finished second to the Grade 2 winner Midnight Storm in the Grade 3 Native Diver at Del Mar on Nov. 27.

A 7-year-old son of Giant’s Causeway, Point Piper is trained by Jerry Hollendorfer. The Hall of Fame trainer also will be represented in the Longacres Mile by Seattle Serenade, who will be running in a stakes race for the first time following a win in a conditional allowance race at Pleasanton on June 25.

“I am working on plans to bring both of them,” Hollendorfer said Tuesday.

They make a good pair.

A four-time winner with $101,910 in earnings, Seattle Serenade likely will be involved early, while Point Piper does his best running late.

The hot local horse among the 16 nominated is Mach One Rules, who is coming off back-to-back stakes wins under Isaias Enriquez for trainer Frank Lucarelli. He was particularly impressive in winning the $50,000 Mt. Rainier by two lengths over Bistraya going 1 1/16 miles on July 16. It was his first win at a middle distance and the first time he had gone around two turns this year.

Hastings-based Bistraya is also being pointed to the Mile by trainer Rob Gilker, who won the 2013 edition with Herbie D.

Two-time Longacres Mile winner Stryker Phd has been training forwardly for Larry Ross. He was scratched just prior to being loaded in the Mt. Rainier when he was lagging behind the rest of the field.

Trainer Mike Puhich, who saddled 2012 Mile winner Taylor Said, is looking at entering Prime Engine and Chief of Staff.

Chief of Staff will be making his first start since he finished ninth going seven furlongs on a wet track in the Grade 2 Churchill Downs Stakes on May 6.

Prime Engine was the runner-up to Mach One Rules in the $50,000 Budweiser on June 18 before being scratched out of the Mt. Rainier with a temperature. His last stakes win came in the 2015 Emerald Downs Derby.

Barkley, the top 3-year-old at Emerald last year, beat Mach One Rules by a neck in the Governor’s Stakes on May 21 but had traffic problems in the Budweiser and Mt. Rainier. He’s trained by Howard Belvoir. His son Vann nominated Gold Rush Dancer to the Longacres Mile. A 4-year-old son of Private Gold, Gold Rush Dancer is a four-time stakes winner with $400,613 in earnings. The last time he ran at Emerald, he was an easy winner of the Gottstein Futurity in 2015.

◗ Lucky Echo, trained by Joe Toye, will be going for the hat trick in a $10,000 claiming race for 3-year-olds and up on Friday. Considering that his last two wins came at the same level and distance, he figures to be a short price in the six-furlong dash, which drew eight horses. Post time for the first of seven races is 6:30 p.m. Pacific.