Winning Machine in search of old form in optional claimer

AUBURN, Wash. – Winning Machine, closing in on $500,000 in earnings but with his career in apparent decline, headlines Saturday’s feature race at Emerald Downs, a $21,000 allowance with a $40,000 optional claiming price at 6 1/2 furlongs. The first post for the nine-race card is 2 p.m. Pacific.

Winning Machine, a five-time stakes winner midway through his 8-year-old season, will make his first start for a new trainer when he tackles seven rivals. Raymond Kwik and Paul Goldberg, who bred the Toccet gelding in Kentucky, transferred Winning Machine to Howard Belvoir following his last-place finish May 18 in the Governor’s Handicap.

Belvoir is the third trainer to handle Winning Machine. Doris Harwood had him until midway through his 4-year-old year, then Frank Lucarelli took up the chase. Harwood directed Winning Machine to victories in the Emerald Downs and British Columbia derbies in 2009. Lucarelli trained Winning Machine up to his peak effort – a second-place finish, a head behind Taylor Said, in the 2012 Longacres Mile.

Yet for all his exploits, Winning Machine has gone a long time without winning. He has lost 12 successive starts over two years since he captured the one-mile Budweiser Handicap in June 2012. But there have been some near misses during that span – including a nose defeat in a one-mile allowance race in September – and there’s little doubt that Winning Machine, on a good day, can contend for win honors Saturday.

He’ll break from post 6 with a new rider, as David Lopez steps in for Winning Machine’s longtime pilot, Javier Matias.

When at his best, Winning Machine can be a dynamic late-running sprinter, and he’ll have ample pace to target Saturday. Several horses, including the likely favorite, I Keep Saying, are likely to want the early lead. Recent allowance winners My Chief and Country Rules both led gate to wire after carving swift fractions in their victories, and I Keep Saying used similar tactics to down $32,000 claimers in his last start.

Also in the field is Rocky’s Quest, who, like Winning Machine, will be looking to reverse course following a disappointing effort in his last start.

Rocky’s Quest, who has won seven times at Emerald over the past two seasons, was a distant eighth behind Scat Daddybaby in an allowance sprint April 20. He has spent the past eight weeks on the sideline. He too will have a new rider. Rocco Bowen replaces Juan Gutierrez, who opted to ride I Keep Saying.