Season
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www.courierherald.com
The Courier-Herald
Wednesday, April 18, 2018
13
Familiar names among expected stars
Gold Rush Dancer won last year’s Longacre Mile by four and three-quarter lengths, beating out Mach One Rules. Photo courtesy Phil Ziegler
Each year at every track there’s new faces among the horse population with the potential to make an impact in different divisions. This season at Emerald Downs a newcomer will have to display high ability to unseat one of the many returning track stars from 2017. Opening Day is Sunday, April 22 and several early-season feature races figure to determine qualifiers for the schedule of outstanding stakes races, beginning May 20 with the $50,000 Seattle Handicap for three-year-old fillies. Among the expected best threeyear-old fillies, Bella Mia tops the list heading into 2018. After finishing fourth in her career debut last year, she rattled off four straight victories including three
stakes races. None of the wins required the photo finish camera, all were clear, dominant victories. The daughter of Harbor the Gold was named Washington State Champion of her division. Among the three-year-old colts and geldings, Elliott Bay is out doing his morning training for Howard Belvoir and looks bigger, stronger and better than during his very successful 2017 juvenile season. Elliott Bay won both the WTBOA Lads and rich Gottstein Futurity last season and was also a Washington Champion. He too, is sired the track’s all-time leading stakes stallion, Harbor the Gold. The track’s top fillies and mares had a clear leader in 2017, the consistently excellent Citizen See DOWNS, Page 14