Trackattacker keeping it local

AUBURN, Wash. – Emerald Downs’s top horses are on the move, with Stryker Phd, Del Rio Harbor, and Stopshoppingdebbie all being readied for late-summer starts at other venues. But perhaps the main attraction, the undefeated 2-year-old Trackattacker, is going to stick around for a while.

Trackattacker, who has won his three starts by a combined 27 lengths, will start next in the $50,000 Daily Racing Form Dennis Dodge Stakes on Sept. 7. If he passes that test against Washington-breds, trainer Frank Lucarelli said, he likely would come back three weeks later in the $65,000 Gottstein Futurity at 1 1/16 miles.

“There’s a sprint that day, too,” Lucarelli said, referencing the six-furlong Cahill Road Stakes on Sept. 28. “But we’ll probably go in the Gottstein. I want to stretch him out because if he does anything great, I want to try him somewhere else.”

Lucarelli shot down backstretch rumors that Trackattacker had been injured in his last start, a seven-length victory in the WTBOA Lads Stakes on Aug. 16. Trackattacker earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 59 in the Lads, several lengths slower than his scintillating efforts in a nine-length maiden victory (74 Beyer) and an 11-length romp in the six-furlong Emerald Express Stakes (76 Beyer), where he ran six furlongs in 1:08.31.

Lucarelli said Trackattacker lost a shoe shortly after the start of the Lads but came out of the race in good order.

“It was a hind shoe, and he blew it right out of the gate,” Lucarelli said. “I don’t think it affected him. It’s never a good thing, but would it have cost him a race? No. You don’t want it to happen, but it wasn’t a big deal.”

◗ Lucarelli said that Mebossman, the winner of the Emerald Downs Derby in his last start, will compete in the one-mile Jim Beam Stakes here on Washington Cup Day. Plans for the rapidly improving 3-year-old are fluid after that.

“Mebossman will probably chill for a while after the Washington Cup,” Lucarelli said. “We’re trying to decide whether to give him a month off and take him to Phoenix or to give him the winter and bring him back to Emerald.”

◗ Gallant Son, the champion 2-year-old at Emerald in 2008, will make as many as three more starts in California before embarking on a second career as a stallion, said Lucarelli, his trainer. Gallant Son, by Malabar Gold, will stand at Bar C Racing Stable in Hermiston, Ore.

Gallant Son’s next start will come down the hill at Santa Anita in the Grade 3 Eddie D on Sept. 26, Lucarelli said.

“He’s doing great, and he looks like a million bucks,” Lucarelli said. “A couple of more races, and that will be it.”