April 24, 2025 • 55 mins
See you at Emerald Downs for Opening Day, this Sunday, April 27! First race goes at 1:50 pm. We’ll have the traditional jockey introductions in the Paddock prior to the first race. Horse players take note of the low 12% takeout on Pick-3 wagers plus another year of penny breakage – both of those lead to higher payouts on winning bets. Tickets for all racing days are available at emeralddowns.com. Jockey Frank Alvarado and DRF writer Mike Seeley join Joe and Vince on this edition of the pod. Alvarado, with over 4,000 career victories, has been a Bay Area stalwart for over 20 years. He’s sad to see racing leave that local but is excited to ride for many familiar trainers at Emerald Downs in 2025. Seeley is an accomplished writer with an impressive resume, including a previous stint with the DRF in the St Louis area. Look for his EmD copy in the print edition and on-line at drf.com.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
macOS.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
It doesn't matter if you love craps, blackjack machines or
dining on the finest Asian, American and Salish cuisines. It
doesn't matter what you do or where you're coming from Mucos.
What you do is all at Muckleshoe, an easy drive
from wherever you are. All roads lead to Muckleshoe.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Mucosuit horse racing Northwest from Emerald Downs. It's an opening
(00:54):
week for a racing season and we're busy in the
building at Emerald Downs getting ready for opening day this Sunday,
April twenty seventh, first race, one fifty pm. Hope to
see you out at the track. Pretty decent weather forecast,
nothing like Thursday and Friday of the week, but it's
(01:16):
still looking pretty good. And we're gonna have the lidlifter
for twenty twenty five. Joe with the and Vince Brown here.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
Yeah, it's pretty exciting. That's season number thirty. Yeah for
Emerald Downs. Can you believe that? And we kind of
ease into it, Joe, as we've been talking about one
racing day Sunday, April twenty seventh, opening week, and then
the big Saturday, May third, Kentucky Derby Day card and
then in week three we go to Saturday and Sunday,
(01:44):
May tenth, eleventh. We do that for I think it's
either three or four weeks, and then beginning Friday, June sixth,
we go Friday, Saturday Sunday post times this year one
fifty pm. It's up a little earlier from past and
once Fridays come on board seven o'clock.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
So there's a quick schedule setting from Vince brun our
director of media Relations, and Vince, let's get right into
the Emerald Racing Club. You guys got horses.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
Now, we got two of them, and in fact, as
we speak, they're en route from Phoenix via Van I
think they go up through Twin Falls, Idaho that way.
It's about you know, Joe Toy back at his barn
has the exact mileage between her Paradise and Emerald Downs.
They got a little signed because he's done it for
every year, and I think it's fourteen hundred and eighty
(02:32):
miles depending on which route you take. But yeah, so
we'll have two here. We're having a little get together
Saturday to meet the horses, and Scott Tubbs having a
pretty good meet down at Phoenix will be up to
say hi to everybody and then right into opening day
on April twenty seventh. As for the Racing Club, we
hope to have a starter here pretty quick, so we
(02:53):
got a couple mirrors this year. As it turns out,
you never know how those things are going to work out,
but they look good. They'll look like they'll we try
to get things that fit the racing program here so
we'll get some action, okay, And people can still join
the club of course, yes, just Vince vatamiraldowns dot com
or called two five three two at eight seven seven
two three. We've got room for you. In fact, someone
(03:16):
you know, Joe just registered this week, Julie Nakahara, Oh
very good. Had a nice chat with her. She was
talking about how she used to do the Kjar reports
for you and uh had a lot of horses with
Roy Lum over the years, and uh, yeah, it's exciting
to get people like that involved.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
The Emerald Racing Club. Five hundred dollars is your one
time fee. Plus you do need to pay for your
racing Commission license, owner's license, but no other bills. And
that just is a nice perk because as a horse owner. Typically,
you know, you do have your training bills and every
once in a while there's a vet bill as well,
(03:58):
and they do come month This doesn't come monthly, Vince, No.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
But we try to teach people so when they do
go on their own, they'll know the expense is involved.
Depending on your particular trainer. Here at the track, it's
about seventy dollars a day right now, I would say
for most of them, and if you times that by thirty,
it comes out to about twenty one hundred twenty two
hundred dollars a month per horse in training bills. So
(04:22):
if you form your own little syndicates, you know, you
can break up the cost quite a bit. Or as
you said Joe in the racing Club, you just pay
one time and then you're good for the year.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
All right, Well, we are set. The entries have been
drawn for opening day this Sunday, April twenty seventh. We
have a seven race card. Entries are a little bit
light for the first week, but folks, it's gonna definitely
grow from there because we do and we are going
to have close to two hundred more horses on the
grounds for this meeting than we did last year or
(04:55):
the previous few seasons. So we're going to have some
good field size up coming entries available at equabase dot
COMDRF dot com, Daily Racing Formal be out. It's time
to get handicapping for Emerald Downs for twenty twenty five
Opening Day. Some of the other things going on, we're
going to have a memorial brief memorial service for Greg McComb.
(05:20):
He was a full time Emerald Downs employee going back
to nineteen ninety six, drove the water truck every year
and unfortunately Greg did pass from cancer last fall, and
his partners and the maintenance shop and the track crew
and anybody else is going to join in a little
(05:42):
service down by the Winter Circle well before the first
race on Sunday to remember and honor Greg McComb. We're
going to introduce the jockeys as we do on opening Day,
and we're going to have some new names there.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
Yeah, we'll talk more about that as in fact, we'll
have one of them on the show today, a guy
named Frank Alvarado, who's got quite a resume, will go
over in a little bit. But yeah, you know, with
the situation in Northern California, several of them writers from
down there are going to try their luck here this year.
I know a couple from last year that won't be back,
(06:19):
I guess Carlo Lopez and Luis Ria. So that does
open up some wins there in the jockeys room, but
it's still going to be ultra competitive, I think this
year for sure.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
You know, Alex Cruz will soon be here. In fact,
he's named on Horses Opening Day. Yes, he is getting
for his sixth consecutive Emerald Downs title. He's already broken
the record here in Washington State for five consecutive titles
at one track. You did that last year. Manuel Americano boy,
(06:50):
he won the meet at Fresno after leaving here late
last or last September. And then he also is going
to win the meet at Terre Paradise.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
As we mentioned, he went into today with a seventy
nine to sixty one lead in the standings, eighteen ahead.
And that's been a pretty tough meat down there with
a lot of writers. So how far he's come in
one year is pretty remarkable. Yeah, So he'll be he'll
be tough. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
So again, as Vince said, Frank Alvarado joining us on
this edition of Horse Racing Northwest, as will Mike Seeley,
the writer for the Daily Racing Form, new to that
position this year. Not not a guy that's unknown in
the Seattle area as far as writing and sports writing.
(07:36):
So Michael joined us. Hey, remember the Los Margerita's Cafe
is open now. It's open Wednesday through Sunday in the
Stable area, replacing the name Quartershoot Cafe, Lost Marks Cafe,
some really good fair.
Speaker 5 (07:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Little Spanish influence on some of the dishes, of course,
but a lot of your regular favorites as well, for
both breakfast and lunch. We're going to be doing the
where are they nows, which air before the first race
on each race day at Emerald Downs. Then they go
to Emerald Downs YouTube channel. Reba is Tops is the
(08:11):
first where are they Now? She did pass away last year,
but it hasn't been that long and she was Washington
Horse of the Year in twenty ten. But she was
a tremendous producing broodmare and also a third career after
they retired her from being a broodmare, she was a
surrogate mother and did a great job there. You'll find
(08:33):
out about her her whole career there on our where
are they now on Sunday. What about the twelve percent
takeout on pick threes? That's outstanding.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
It is outstanding, and I look forward to playing that
myself this year. I like, you know, we all got
our kind of wagers we like, right, but I tend
to play. I like to figure out who's going to
win the race and not so much who's going to
run second and third. So consequently usually make win bets
and daily double bats and pick three, so that'll be
(09:05):
right in my particular wheelhouse. So that's twelve percent is
you're gonna see some outstanding payoffs this year on your
pick threes.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
That is fantastic because pick three wagers here at Emerald
downs in the past and around the whole nation at
least twenty percent. So twelve percent more money being returned
to winning wagers pick threes at Emerald downs twelve percent
this year. We're gonna have the penny breakage as well.
That's to the horse player's advantage. Also, hey, the Seattle
(09:35):
Times is going to offer good coverage again. Scott Hansen
has done so many fantastic articles over the year, but
day to day racingfo as well.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
And we all saw the nice job Scott did on
the industry of the status of the industry on racing
in Washington last month. He'll have a nice story on
opening day. A shout out to Paul Barrett, their sports editor. There.
You know, it's hard to battle like the Seahawks in
this network and they get all the coverage and you
(10:07):
know they keep track of hits and all that and
marketing and the numbers are what they are. But they've
been very fair to us. So yeah, they'll continue to
run our entries and results, which is not something you
can take for granted in this day and age with
papers around the country. And so I shout out to
Scott Hansen, a fine rider and nose horse racing, and
Paul Barrett their sports editor.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
That is great. Yeah, entries and charts in the Seattle
Times newspaper again at Emerald Downs this year, so we're
thankful for that. Let's see, the building will not be open.
This is not this coming Monday Tuesday, but starting May
fifth and sixth, Monday and Tuesday, Emerald Downs will not
(10:49):
be open on Mondays and tuesdays for full card simulcasting.
Her paradise is over. That was of you know, large interest,
so those days were pretty anyway, So we'll not be
open on Monday and Tuesday. Actually the snow Qualmi Casino
will there's new sports book will be open, and you
(11:09):
know then there's of course all the adw's Advanced deposit
wagerings that you can do over your phone.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
If there's a will, there's a way.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Yeah, you can still follow tracks whatever tracks you like
on Monday and Tuesday, but we won't be open starting
Monday May fifth, Tuesday May sixth, and that'll be continuing
on through the race meeting. All right. Some other things,
horses at Emerald Downs. We've got a lot of new barns,
as you'll see in the entries for opening day, meaning
(11:39):
new trainers, and we just talked about some jockeys. Well, hey,
it's going to be a different year. It's never too
far to off to think about the Long Acres Mile Sunday,
August seventeenth. No five star General this year, after five
consecutive gallant and thrilling performances in the mile.
Speaker 4 (11:59):
Events that he'll be impossible to replace, of course, but
the mile is still on the radar of all the
horsemen on the West Coast, and you know, the local leader,
of course, would be slewsed to his Whiz and just
looking I haven't actually seen work with the times he's
been working look great. So you know Tom Wenzel knows
his horse there and he'll be a force. And you
(12:23):
know we've talked with John Parker about the Washington horse
of the year, Lonesome Boy, perhaps making his way west.
He has been at animald Downs before. And we'll have
some handicapped stars developed throughout the year, right, So definitely yeah,
And the big big change fans will see this year
is just the stake stays, you know. That's right. Most
(12:47):
of our stakes will be concentrated onto four programs, including
six on Sunday, August seventeenth, led by the Mile.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
That's right, That is the big day, August seventeenth. We'll
have six stakes races on that day.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
We'll be busy beavers that week. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Papa's Golden Boys also doing really well. He won that
really nice five and a half for a long sprint
early last meet. It was on and off track. I
thinks loosed his Whiz was fourth in there, but he's
training very well. For Vince Gimpson, now a nine year old,
is Papa's Golden Boy.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
He'll be fun to watch because, as we saw last year,
he popped fresh. So I got to think what he's got.
We might see his first out. Yeah, he's certainly amongst
the list of all time favorites here at Emerald Downs.
Just amazingly fast some of those races when he was
four and five years old. Around the turn he was
just a blur. Yeah, he's going about as fast as
(13:45):
a thoroughbred can go.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
He had a second in the Long Acres Mile and
Justice his whiz when those contemporaries are back. Some of
the claiming horses that we're expected to see. Last year's
claimer of the meetings risingly perfect. Just one again down
in Phoenix, Yep.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
Kevin Krieger up and.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
Eleven year old.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
Now, yeah, he held off a late clothes but he
is just racehorse, that guy. And he I think he
remember his career started at Woodbuy and I want to
say way back in twenty sixteen and is eleven. He
is eleven. Yeah, so he's our defending claimer of the meat.
(14:27):
A couple other Joey here mentioned a couple other notable
claimers have been on the worktab as well.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
Exactly Executive chef five starts last year three wins in
two seconds. Dirt Road Red has had plenty of drills
for Candy Kreiderman. He was claimer of the meet in
twenty twenty three and then won three more last year.
He's eight for fifteen at Emerald Down's Dirt Road Red
kremden Men had an outstanding season last year. She's coming
(14:55):
off a real good race in Phoenix. Yeh, pistol Power
the eleven year old is and looking at the media
guy that you put together that's available at emeraldowns dot com,
I think he's the only horse that's active among horses
with eleven winds or more.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
Yeah, that's kind of surprised that and I did double
check that list just to make sure of it that
is correct. One thing I've always loved about Emerald Downs
is we see a lot of these venerable claimers from
year to year because they get the winner off, yeah,
and they come back fresh, and like any athlete, you know,
mentally and physically, sometimes you just need to get away, right.
You know, they love to run and all that, but
(15:33):
you know, the aches and pains can kind of catch
up with you through a grueling season and sometimes mentally
you get a little off too, and these old horses
like that, they just come back and as a fan,
it's fun to see. You know, we always see steaks
horses year to year, but to see some of these
claimers come back year to year and strut their stuff
is a lot of fun.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Love to see it. Yeah, and that works to our
advantage being a little bit isolated up here with many barns.
Take the fall and winter to spring off. Okay, and
Jen Tong is noted for running second, Yeah, but he's
been breaking through of late.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
Got a couple of wins for our good friend Wayne
Williams down in Vancouver, Washington. Joe Toy has done a
whale of a job with this horse. I mean he
in one stretch he had nine seconds in eleven starts
and it was not second. Itightest, he was running hard.
He just one of those streaks where he'd get beat,
someone would beat him. Well, now he's put together a
couple of wins, so look out. I mean, this horse
(16:30):
was bred to be pretty decent and he's finding his
oats and he could be a pretty serious race horse
up here. Joe, I know they're heading up this way.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Jen Tong, j I N T N G. Those of
you that follow Emerald Downs know him for two or
three consecutive seasons, and he is on a little winning
streak now. Coastal Jazz is Washington's number one earner for
twenty twenty five. He won the inaugural at Sunray Park
last Saturday, a seventy five thousand dollars race. He's over
(17:01):
sixty thousand dollars in earnings. Justin Evans trainee bred by
El Dorado Farms, and he's a seven year old now
and never really been better. I see he's entered again
next Wednesday. He's in with Coastal Kid and a really
tough race down in Phoenix, but he's expected to be
up here. Coastal Jazz number one in earnings, ahead of
(17:24):
Huge Bigley and Lonesome Boy on that Washington bred list
early in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
You know one thing I've learned around here. If a
horse has the name Coastal in.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
It, usually a pretty good horse. He seems to be
usually have some speed. Yeah anyway, Yeah, Coastal Jazz won
the inaugural at Sunray Park and ran fast and doing so.
So there's some claimers and more we expect to see
performances from an Emerald Downs in twenty twenty five. We
(17:56):
mentioned Kentucky.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
Derby Day the schedule there and let's see, Uh yeah,
I think that's pretty good for our first segment. We
will come back in a moment and we will have
veteran jockey Frank Alvarado as our guest here on horse
racing Northwest.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Muchos.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
It doesn't matter if you love craps, blackjack machines or
dining on the finest Asian, American and Salish cuisines. It
doesn't matter what you do or where you're coming from Mucos.
What you do is all at Muckleshoe, an easy drive
from wherever you are. All roads lead to Muckleshoe.
Speaker 6 (18:46):
Mucosuit MCN's mojave turns her home with sweet Northern Saint
Im on side. Silver wagon to the outside comes Try Martini,
Summer book is there. It is Mucken's mojave and he's
still in front. Sixteenth to go, here's silver wagon, Try
(19:06):
Martini and summer book closing late, but McCann's mojave wins it.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
That was the Sunshine Millions Classic of two thousand and
seven at Gulfstream Park. That was an interesting series. West
Coast horses cow breds against East Coast horses. Florida Bread's
for several years had some big races, and McCann's Mojave
won it in seven. And before we get to our guest,
(19:36):
who was the winning rider that day, Vince Brune knows
the McCann's Mojave story quite well.
Speaker 4 (19:44):
Yeah, mccan's Mahavey bred and owned by a good friend
of mine, Mike Wooman for many years director of publicity
at Santa Anita, and the horse had gone a little sour,
so he shipped it up to Steve Speck at Golden
Gate and they switched writers to Frank Albarado in Lo
and behold, he wins three straight, including the one million
dollar Sunshine Millions Classic. But Frank is far from a
(20:07):
one hit wonder. Listen to these stats. Joe four thousand
and ninety three career wins, seventeen grated wins, over ninety
million in person earnings and maybe next to Russell Bays
the most successful jockey the last twenty five years in
Northern California. Frank Alvarado, I would say so.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
And Frank's joining us right here on horse racing Northwest Frank.
Uh that that race brings back some memories.
Speaker 7 (20:35):
Huh Alla alaa memory Alla. I remember. I remember one
morning he called me a song. He's a song. I
think I have something good from Donsau. When are you working?
I say, yeah, no brawling, And soon I work at
a hole for the first time I thought, I I say, wow,
(20:58):
I think we want to have fun with Heydang. We
wined suns a million. We win at least four I
think four three est in Golden Game.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Oh yeah, and that was a nice paycheck from that
Sunshine millions when Frank how about it? That was great,
A nice chunk to win a million dollar race. And
I know he was a bit of a long shot
that day. Part of the reason was is because he
was at the East Coast.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
He had thirty three to one.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Thirty three to one, okay, well, great job. And Vince
you said that was his third winning a row with
Frank on him.
Speaker 4 (21:37):
I believe, so. Yeah, and he had gotten really good
and uh, just an amazing run. I'll never forget seeing
Mike after the race. You know, you start screaming. Only
he was he was not in Florida. His brother represented
him down there, so he was watching on the TV
and just watching a guy watch his horse win a
one million dollar race. That was pretty exciting.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
I remember it well because Mike as you men the media,
fellow media member, and that's pretty good hit for a
media guy to win a million dollar race. Frank Alvarado
a board, Frank, your career has just been outstanding, as
Vince mentioned the over four thousand wins. Uh, where are
you from and how did you get going in the
US the United States?
Speaker 7 (22:18):
Well, I'm from I'm from Pana Man.
Speaker 8 (22:21):
Uh like riding.
Speaker 7 (22:23):
Who is in my blow? Because my my my father
he was a trainer, my brother he's riding, and my uncle.
I'm pretty sure a lot of people know my uncle
in here, Victor Tea back in the seventy I think
in the seventy. Yeah, yeah, it's isn't the blow. I remember,
(22:43):
like yesterday when my father take me to the track
and uh, for the first time I see that big animal.
I just run away. I don't want to be a
part of this thing. I don't want to be a jockey.
I don't want to and uh, he he is a
is ah I teach you about I started to ride
a horsing thing. I'm seven year old.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Yeah, well, as you mentioned, it's in the family, and
you certainly got over that uh uh trepidation, little little
fear of horses when you were first young. Yeah, they're big,
but uh man uh And then Panama has such a
fantastic history, you know, just doing starting with Lafitte, Pinkai
Junior and of course Alex Salice. Uh boy, those are
(23:29):
two guys that did some good work before you.
Speaker 8 (23:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
Yeah, well, uh so you kind of worked your way
up to the Bay Area pretty early in your career,
didn't you.
Speaker 7 (23:44):
Two thousand, I moved my top two thousand and my
my and we we were raised in San Anita. But
it's really tough, is that if I name you or
the that thing, uh you know you. I cannot pick
(24:05):
one hole. If I ride one hole, I finished second.
The next time they want some big guy, I under
think I don't know one thing about me. I learned
a lot with the ride with this guy like Ping
Kail Jose, Chris McCarron, so Lee, I write it with
the best in the United States in the ninety with
(24:26):
the best, and I only nineteen, and uh I is
working really hard in but it's it's hard to get
him out. But anyway, I moved into Northern California in
one week. I take off right away. I win the
first week I writing in bay Medow. I think I
win four races right away that week and the and
(24:48):
go from there.
Speaker 8 (24:49):
Right away.
Speaker 7 (24:50):
I take off quick and go there in bay Medow.
I really yeah, all this training, they held me right away.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
They know.
Speaker 7 (24:58):
They see me that he can write, and they give
me a lot of shouting. Uh.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
I thank it from the well Vince.
Speaker 4 (25:05):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
You know Frank mentioned the guys down there at Santa
Nita when he was riding the people that were beating him,
just about everybody's in the racing Hall of Fame.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
There was like eight or nine Hall of famers and
Gary Stevens, Kent Desormo, the list goes on and on.
And Frank was holding his own down there. You know,
he wasn't It wasn't like he wasn't getting wins. But
the move to Northern California, like Frank said, he just
took off right there and uh he four thousand wins later,
you know, here he is. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
And of course Russell Bays was well established, but you
certainly found your niche and Rode for a lot of
different barns. What uh, what did you What do you
do well as a jockey? I mean, you know, you
guys need to do a lot of things. There's a
few decisions to make in a raise. You want to
get out of the gate. What do you perceive yourself? Well,
(25:56):
I think I do that a little better than the
next guy. What what are some of your attributes?
Speaker 7 (26:02):
Well, one thing about me, I just tried to get
it get a good position right away, and I tried
to don't get trouble. But racing sometimes you know, you
gain trouble and sometimes the realist open. But I just
tried to at least get a good position. Like Roussell
(26:22):
always told me, when right with Roussell, When Rossell ride
nine to five and either second, joy Rosso is always
right with me. So you know, he had to beat
me what I did him, and I just I just
learning a lot of things from Rossell too.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
Yeah, he started that dominance around nineteen seventy nine eighty
in the Bay Area, and of course he teamed up
with Jerry Hollendorff and Rode first call for him. Who
are some of the trainers you really respected in your
running Northern California I.
Speaker 7 (26:56):
Paid a lot of If he's paid a team, mcanna
is almost I win't racing for everybody in Northern California.
They go horsemen, they know what to do and they
trust me to rifle.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
Then yeah, and uh, Tim mccanna, I was just dominant
up here at Emerald Downs. He won ten training titles
in our first sixteen seasons. And uh, he kind of
relocated to Northern cal And boy, he's used you so much.
What do you respect about Tim as a trainer?
Speaker 8 (27:33):
Thing?
Speaker 7 (27:34):
Uh? Thing is a good horseman. Thing is almost seven
day a week in the racing, and he's every morning
he's there and he I respect the thing. He know
what he's doing. I respect that and he knowing Like
I said, he throws me when I rifle hang one thing.
The thing never yell at me or screaming you spent
(27:57):
I respect hand like like a horseman. But th thing
is a good horseman.
Speaker 8 (28:02):
Gag I am.
Speaker 7 (28:03):
He gave me a lot of chot to win races
for him.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
You know that's a good point about Tim. Not a
he's not a yeller at all, but he's extremely perceptive.
Speaker 4 (28:11):
Vince. Yeah, Frank, Uh, I read where you are like
living within five minutes away from the Pleasanton Racetrack, which
unfortunately is closed this year. So we're seeing guys like you,
Francisco Duran, Sylvio Amador. It's great to have you up here.
How hard is it for you to to kind of
leave what's been your home?
Speaker 7 (28:33):
Honestly, I gotta go. Honestly, it's it's still her. It's
sture because when I heard placing to when I'm raising,
I just told my wife, I say, I know I'm
fifty sick, but if we're racing in Pleasington, I'll be
righted for more three more years. Guy live right by
the five many from three many from Pleasington and Placington.
(28:56):
It is as a good rastaurant and it's a lot
of people around pleasant Tong is a lot of people
got money. But it's to her, we're not raising, and
what's some raising? This is happening. Everybody had to move
and take a different way. I know it's not be
easy for me in going in at all down, but
(29:17):
I know one thing I know what to do. I'd
be working. I want to work in hard every morning.
I hopefully they're going to give me one more shot.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
I don't think that's going to be that much of
a problem, you know. I mean, it's a new place
and you want to establish yourself. But your name is
so well known in your resume, and you do have
Tim mccanna in your corner, I know so. Uh, and
he's going to have a lot more horses up here
this year than he's had the past few years. Frank
lives near Pleasanton. Huh, Frank, what's your favorite restaurant in Pleasanton?
(29:49):
There's only like sixty of them to choose from, honestly.
Speaker 7 (29:54):
Honestly, I like every is good, and I just want
to say one thing about em I want to say
thank you to Fishing, ste Fisher and Jackie. Let me
stay with this guy, and they showed me Monday. I
work a horse on Monday from Fishing and Fisher drive me,
(30:16):
give me his throw and uh take me to somewhere
every It's really nice where we are going to live too,
it's really nice.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
That is great, Yeah, Steve Fisher and Jackie Navari.
Speaker 5 (30:29):
Steve.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Steve was in the Northwest for a long time, long Acres,
Portland Meadows, Emerald Downs, and good to have him back.
And sounds like he's treating you right as well as
you deserve the respect man with your career. And are
we going to see you uh in the second week
of the season. Uh, Kentucky Derby Day.
Speaker 7 (30:50):
I'm Knockingentucky Derby Day.
Speaker 8 (30:53):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (30:54):
But my plan is May thing, okay, very good, Yep,
that'll be our third weekend.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
It'll be a two day weekend May tenth and eleventh,
Saturday and Sunday. Look for Frank Luca. Look for Frank
Alvarado to be named on horses at Emerald Downs and
and keep riding those great races that have earned him
a fantastic career already. Frank, thank you so much for
(31:25):
joining us.
Speaker 5 (31:26):
And anything very good.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
We'll see you up here in a couple of weeks
and take care and see you then.
Speaker 7 (31:36):
All right, I see you in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
Thank you, Frank.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Frank Alvarado over four thousand wins. He's going to make
his name in the jockey standings at Emerald Downs. You
know that, Vince, you know, writing a lot for Tim mccanna.
I'm sure. I mean that relationship has produced a lot
of success the last ten to fifteen years.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
I like what Frank said there. Like most riders, you know,
you ask them what a style is and it just
boils down to they're in the right place at the
right time on their horse. They know their horse and
they know what's kind of the race is going to
shape up, and they're in that right spot and if
the horse is willing and has got it, they'll get
them to the winter circle. It's just as simple as that, yep.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
And you know, a guy like Frank Alvarado, you're going
to see him winning on horses that he's probably never
been on before. And a really good jockey can do
that because well, they look at the form, they talk
to the trainer, but you know they do get cues
as well as the race horsemanship. Yeah, exactly, and they
(32:40):
take advantage of what they're feeling underneath them that they've
felt so many different times before. Thanks to Frank for
joining us. And you have a okay, you've got a
story a little bit later. Yeah, we'll take a time out.
We'll come back with Mike Seeley of the Daily Racing
Form Here on horse Racing Northwest. The drills of Live
Race return to Emerald Downs Sunday, April twenty seven. Get
(33:03):
ready for a spring and summer of fast horses and
Family Fund enter the Fabulous Hat and Best Dress contest
on Kentucky Derby Day Saturday May third. Go to Emeraldowns
dot com to purchase tickets for all your favorite events
including Corgi Races, t Rex Races, Third of July, Fireworks Spectacular,
and Indian Relay Racing. Don't miss Opening Day Sunday, April
(33:25):
twenty seventh, only at Emerald Downs Horse Racing Northwest at
Emerald Downs Opening Week, our thirtieth season of racing. At
nineteen ninety six was the first. This is our thirtieth year.
It starts Sunday, April twenty seventh, first race one fifty
pm and new to the daily Racing form covering Emerald
(33:49):
Downs for twenty twenty five. A veteran rider here in
western Washington. We had a rider on last segment. We've
got to write her this time. He's Mike Seeley. Mike,
thanks for joining Vincent myself here on our podcast.
Speaker 8 (34:06):
It's my pleasure, fellows. Thanks for having me. Looking forward
to coming up the track a lot this summer.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
A yeah, and you you have had a passion a
love of horse racing, even though you've been riding in
different areas for much of your career tell us about
your horse racing background, so I.
Speaker 8 (34:25):
Don't have like one of these romantic here's how I
fell in love with horse racing stories like a lot
of people do. So I apologize up front that I
kind of got into it in college just it's a
way of entertaining myself. It was a way to gamble
where I felt like there was some intellect involved, which
there clearly is yep. And then you know, I'd moved
(34:49):
to Saint Louis some years after college, and we'll go
to the track there, Fairmont Park in southern Illinois, and
you know, I wanted to find a way to basically
cover my losses as a gambler, So I started being
a stringer for the daily Racing form after a Mont Parker.
Did that for a couple of years, and I kind
of deepened my appreciation for the sport and the immense
(35:12):
amount of knowledge that it takes to to really play
it well and enjoy it to its fullest.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
Mike Seeley, you remember saying when your parents would say
someone's a sharp cookie, kind of that's but Mike is.
He's He's a great writer and a dogged reporter, and
I've read some of his stuff and admired it, and
you've probably seen it like in publications like the Seattle Weekly,
and I know as a handicapper he's outstanding. Having seen it, Mike,
(35:39):
you're going to be churning out some copy here for
Daily Racing Form kind of layout. What what?
Speaker 8 (35:46):
Uh?
Speaker 4 (35:47):
How your new job with the Racing Form is uh?
Is going to unfold?
Speaker 8 (35:51):
Yeah, I'm a little bit of a jack of all
trades and thanks for calling me an outstanding handicapper. You
have a much higher opinion of myself in that regard
than I do. But my job is sort of a
jack of all trade type deal. I do a lot
of copy editing at pieces. I do some affiliate writing,
which I could explain but don't want to bore your listenership.
And then now I'll be covering Emerald downs with a
(36:16):
couple of race advances a week, some track notes, recapping
the Steaks days. I know, I'm excited to see that,
but there are big time Steaks days this year. I'll
popped in that. I'll make for some fun days of racing,
but that'll be the gist of it. I'll also do
a little bit of coverage of Hastings, which feels like
a sister track to you, guys, since you have the
stakes named after one another. So that's kind of the
(36:38):
gist of it. I'll be learning from the horsemen learning
from you guys. I'm sure I do know a fair
amount about horse racing, but I learned something new every day,
mainly due to the savants that have worked at the
racing form for so many years. That made me feel
like I still have a lot lot to learn.
Speaker 4 (36:56):
Mike, you mentioned Saint Louis, but you are a native
Northwestern I know your father worked I believe the Chamber
of Commerce up in Everett.
Speaker 8 (37:04):
Yeah, yeah, that's correct. I grew up in North Seattle
in Wedgwood. When I last visited, you guys are one
of the last times I visited. We pretty much established
the old two degrees of separation rule. If you grew
up in the Pacific Northwest.
Speaker 5 (37:20):
Thank you.
Speaker 8 (37:20):
Guys. Both know each of my parents or one of
you knows my dad, one of you knows my mom.
They've been around here forever too. But yeah, it was
very deep Northwest roots. The only time I've lived outside
the city limits of Seattle, and this includes college, was
when I was in Saint Louis for four years. Wow,
writing for the DRF and the Riverfront Times, the newspaper
out there.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
And Mike, we're Yeah, we've got the four Big Steaks
days where boy, yeah, you guys, you and Vince are
going to be really busy at the keyboard those days,
and I'm going to be busy, uh, broadcasting. But you know,
the stars pretty much will align on those days. And uh,
(38:01):
we went over a lot of the claiming horses that
are returning. I think we're going to have a pretty
good lineup this year. I don't know how much you've
dug into that yet, but you certainly remember a lot
of the names from last year, correct.
Speaker 8 (38:13):
Sure, Yeah, and I'm looking forward to the California invasion
if you will this year. Yeah. That'll make for I
imagine fuller fields and more competitive fields once everyone's there
at the track.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
Yeah, we just had Frank Alvarado on and he's going
to be here the weekend of May tenth and eleven,
and he's going to be riding at Emerald Downs bringing
his four thousand wins plus, so that that's a huge
addition to our jockey colony.
Speaker 8 (38:43):
Yeah, that's a good gill. Yeah, it'd be really.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
Cool gonna where you gonna put Mike Vince when he's
up and he needs to do.
Speaker 4 (38:50):
His work, he'll be right next to the window there
overseeing the track. Well, well, we'll make sure Mike is
is uh well taken care of for sure. Yeah, Mike's
been where you.
Speaker 8 (39:00):
Guys can seat my daughters up on the roof somewhere.
Speaker 4 (39:02):
We'll find room. That's right. You'll be babysitting a couple
of times too, Right, Well, they've.
Speaker 8 (39:08):
Gone to the age where I don't really need to
babysit them. I just need a referee at times because
they're pretty close in the age. And then, yeah, they
love coming to the track. It's such a great family
environment and I've enjoyed it for a long long time,
not only as a better but also a dad.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
Yeah, and your gals, your daughters are having sports careers
of their own kind of moving on, don't they.
Speaker 8 (39:31):
Yes, I feel like that's how I spend most most
of my time is running them around a soccer and
track and lacrosse and basketball. And I do know, I
play my happy our schedule around where their practices are,
so that works.
Speaker 4 (39:44):
Out to that is great. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
So yeah, one thing we haven't talked about in this podcast, Vince,
is that you know, Emerald Downs was up over ten
percent in attendance last year, and you know, let's face it,
that was due to these fantastic promotional family fun days,
of which Mike just referenced.
Speaker 4 (40:02):
Yeah, and we are, and Mike mentioned it's a fun
place for youngsters to come out. A lot of people
have the old cliche of the racetrack with you know,
your grizzly veterans. We got those too, but it's there's
room for everybody. And one of the nice things about
I think coming to the racetrack is you're not in
a stationary seat like you are in a ballgame. It
(40:23):
kind of encourages, you know, moving around a little bit,
going to the paddock or whatever. Everyone has their own
idea of a day at the races, but if you
get one of those nice summer days at Emerald Downs,
I don't think you can beat it.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
And Mike go ahead, Mike.
Speaker 8 (40:38):
Yeah, Well, I wanted to say, I feel like Emerald
Downs was way ahead of the curve in designing the
racetrack back back in the nineties. I mean, it saw
a future where massive grandstands and kind of an old
school stadium experience wasn't going to be what people wanted.
It was going to be more of an open space
(40:59):
kind of family friend, walk around, see the horses, grab
a beer type situation, and it's just designed perfectly for
what horse racing's live product has become.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
In my opinion, that is great. And you know, the
new trainers from the Bay Area, they're going to see
people at the track, you know, I mean, let's face
at the bottom line is money you run for, uh,
And we're going to be fine on that. We're going
to have a good season. But they're also going to
enjoy the race day atmosphere at Emerald Downs over a
(41:31):
lot of the things they've seen the past few years.
And another thing Mike mentioned, let's let's bring a friend
to the track this year, because early on Mike mentioned, you,
you know, as far as wagering, if you have a
little bent for wagering, horse racing has a problem to solve.
There's some cerebral things to it, and so many people
embrace that. And then of course the payoffs are a
(41:54):
lot higher than even money which you get in sports betting.
Speaker 4 (41:58):
Yeah, most sports bets. That's one of the things I
enjoy about racing is definitely audience participation. And if you
enjoy solving puzzles and uh seeing how a pace is
going to play out, and you factor in the connections
of the horse and all these other nuances workouts, distances,
track conditions, uh you know, track biases, you really can't
(42:21):
beat it and if you're right, you get rewarded.
Speaker 8 (42:24):
And Mike Uhl at our fingertips these days is phenomenal.
I'll get a little plug in for for d r
F dot com. Yes, if you you know, if you
go to our website and there's just a treasure trove
of data past performances, be it for the Kentucky Derby,
a really any race, anywhere you want to diaga into, workouts,
(42:45):
clocker reports, video, it's all there at your disposal at
DRF dot com. Well worth a visit if you want to.
Speaker 4 (42:51):
Do it right.
Speaker 3 (42:53):
I'm still a dear d r F guy when it
comes to past me, Mike, I'm used to it for
a lot of decades and I'm I'm not leaving. So
there's that. And how about the twelve percent takeout on
pick three wagers? Does that interest you at all?
Speaker 8 (43:08):
Yeah, I'll be I'm not a big pick three okay myself,
I know people who are, but you know that reduced
takeouts and I believe it's twenty to twelve. It's fantastic
and I'll be mentioning that at my opening day preview,
which might show up online tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (43:22):
Great, very good, Mike. You know, great to have you
part of Emerald Downs coverage this year, and I really
mean that, and I think our fans and the horsemen
will will appreciate it too. So let's get going.
Speaker 8 (43:37):
Huh, you got it, guys. I'm excited to be doing
this with you.
Speaker 3 (43:42):
Thank you so much, Mike Seeley.
Speaker 4 (43:44):
Thank you Mike.
Speaker 3 (43:45):
Now on the Daily Racing Form. Yeah, thanks so much, Mike.
We'll see you at the track.
Speaker 8 (43:50):
All right, fell Let's take care take.
Speaker 3 (43:51):
Care of Mike Seeley. Yeah, insightful guy.
Speaker 4 (43:55):
And you know he really is a good writer too,
And yeah, I got a little background in that and
I can appreciate a good wordsmith and Mike is that.
And he's a good reporter too.
Speaker 3 (44:06):
Fantastic. Yeah, I know he'll be an outstanding edition. I can.
You know, don't know him quite as well as you do,
but we've spent plenty of time around him. He's been
coming up to our little December twenty sixth get togethers, and.
Speaker 4 (44:20):
You've seen he knows how to get involved.
Speaker 3 (44:21):
That's right. Okay, we've got our final segment. We're in
our final segment, so it's time for some sports shorts
and Opening Day. Well, we've had, you know, twenty nine
of them in the past, and of course the first
race ever was an Opening Day was one for Emerald
Downs history Strawberry Morn winning the US Bank Stakes by
(44:46):
ten lengths race one back on June twentieth, nineteen ninety six.
Another kind of Opening Day oddity was in two thousand
and seven, eight and nine the Long Acres Mile winner
several months in the future one the opening Night Feature,
(45:07):
the Great Face and seven Wasserman in eight and Assessment
in two thousand and nine. They all won the Opening
Night Feature in April and they went on to win
the mile that year. That's a three in a row
for you. And you know, we've had a lot of
really impressive jockey performances on Opening Day over the years.
(45:28):
I won't go into all those, but multiple winners, and
we'll try it again this Sunday, April twenty seventh. Let's
see I guess that was my sport short. So take
it away, Vince Well, I.
Speaker 4 (45:44):
Was going to do a little bit of an obituary.
Maybe not a lot of people in the Northwest realize
who Professor Gordon Jones was, But if you're around LA
in the seventies, eighties and nineties, every racing fan had
heard of Professor Gordon Jones. And he passed away this
week at age ninety five. What a good long run
he had. He headed up the coverage for the Los
(46:06):
Angeles Herald Examiner, and I'm going to tell you when
it came to racing coverage, that was like a page
and a half every day of detailed coverage with Bob
Mazerski's handicap, Jerry Antanucci handicapping, Gordon Joan with his handicap,
and his thoughts on the sport. And he was very opinionated,
but he was a very bright guy too. In fact,
I know, listening to Mike, I mentioned Mike Wilman. He
(46:29):
also does a radio show. He had on Al Michaels
the broadcast drawn last week and Al actually took a
social studies class when Gordon Jones was teaching at Arizona
State University, in the sixties, and he'd talked about they
had little signals if they both liked to horse at
Turf Paradise, to cut the class short and duck into
(46:50):
Gordon's car and they get over to the racetrack to
get down on the double like a true racing fan.
Kevin Modesty of the Daily News in Los Angeles had
one graph here I'll read. Gordon Jones had many career
options as a son of a Whittier College president, the
holder of a Bacheldor's degree from Whittier and a master's
(47:11):
from the University of Oregon, popular journalism professor at USC
Arizona State and Oregon in a math whiz who rated
third among two hundred and fifty thousand men from the
West Coast on a Korea War era Army intelligence tests.
But instead of choosing a life in government service or
writing about quote unquote serious subjects, or staying on the
academic track, Gordon devoted the better part of his life
(47:33):
to picking winning horses at the racetrack. So, yeah, Gordon
Jones passed away this week at ninety five, was still
doing handicapping seminars into his nineties in Las Vegas, and
I got to know Gordon a little bit, and he was,
you know, he was a smart guy and he would
let you know if he didn't agree with you. But
(47:54):
he was also a very generous and nice guy. And
he when I first started working for the Forum, he
went out of his way to try and help me
on a couple things there with writing styles and getting
things across or whatever. So is a generous man too.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
So one would remember things like that, you bet.
Speaker 4 (48:10):
And so I just wanted to pass along the death
of a real icon in horse racing.
Speaker 3 (48:16):
Very good. And was the Herald Examiner.
Speaker 4 (48:18):
That was a daily It was until it went out
of business in nineteen eighty nine, eighty nine, not long ago,
that long ago, And it was the Los Angeles Times,
of course had a great sports section. They covered racing
extensively as well. But if you talk to the real guys,
the real handache, it was the Herald Examiner. Was the
paper very good.
Speaker 3 (48:39):
Okay, I didn't mention training Day. That's a popular video
that we do once a week. We'll be shooting tomorrow morning,
Friday morning, so that'll be on Friday afternoon our training
day for this week, and then we'll be going to
a Thursday edition of training Day throughout the meeting, mixing
it up with the trainers and catching the horses out
(48:59):
there warnings at Emerald Downs. All right, that is some
sports shorts selections. Well, let's take a look. Vince is
our daily morning line pricemakers, so he foregoes making selections
on Emerald Downs races.
Speaker 4 (49:14):
I told you, Joe, I'll lead into your making a
pick here that although the fields weren't big, I really
struggle with it. So if you like something on Sunday
and you know something on a horse or whatever, you
might get a price. It's because Joe, you and mcgree.
There's some confusing races, a lot of horses that haven't
run at Emerald Downs, a lot of horses coming off layoffs,
a lot of new trainers getting involved. It's it's going
(49:36):
to be interesting. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (49:38):
Second races a five and a half fur long sprint
and it's the non winners of two for three and up.
I think Tim mccannon's horse is probably going to be
the favorite in their Blazing Team or Blazing pem.
Speaker 4 (49:50):
Yes em me, I made the horse eight to five
and I made Blaine Rights horse. I think it's mister
Executive five.
Speaker 3 (49:57):
To two seconds. You give mister Executive a shot to
beat the favorite in there. He his sprints, he can
get right into the race, stock the pace. He's got
excellent familiarity. He ended his three year old year on
a pretty good note as well, So he's a second favorite.
Speaker 4 (50:14):
He is. Yeah, the horse looks like I've been training
forwardly for sure?
Speaker 3 (50:17):
Right that too? Okay? The third race is a mile.
We've got a mile on opening day and this is
one of those races you're talking about, Wow, who's going
to go to the front. You know, I Fantastic Dream
did go to the front at pleasanton last October in one,
but he got, you know, some pretty slow fractions. Coastal Waters.
(50:37):
Here's a seven year old son of Coastguard out of
Winning Weave. That's all Washington. He's seven years of age.
He's run sixty one times and he's never raced an
Emerald downs.
Speaker 4 (50:47):
Which is the Yeah. And at the first glance, I
thought that horse look like the best horse on paper.
But you'll probably talk about it. There's one question mark.
Speaker 3 (50:56):
There's a question mark in that he doesn't he's number
one on dirt correct. He spent most of his career
on turf. I did notice his last race on dirt
wasn't bad though, he was third out of ten at
Phoenix quite a mile, so I'm going to pick him
to win. Manuel Americano a little bit of a weight
(51:18):
break for Sergio Garcia. There's not a lot of wind
machines in that race, but he's a good grinder, you know,
lots of seconds and thirds. So was he the morning
line favorite in there?
Speaker 4 (51:28):
I think so, yeah, darn it?
Speaker 3 (51:30):
Okay. And then the fifth race a couple of first
time starters in here. It's a sprint for made in
three year old phillies at the short distance of five furlongs,
and I took Bella chow Chow for trainer Coco Patino,
who had two races here at good strong levels last year.
(51:52):
Didn't show a ton of early gas, but you know,
was put away in mid August and that was it
for her two year old years. She's by Stanford out
of that former Emerald Downstakes winner, Reginella. Reginella's first full
so I gave her a nod Julian couton aboard and
she's it's a six horse field, so it's what she
probably five to two or so.
Speaker 4 (52:13):
Yeah, I think I made the three to one second choice.
I really struggled to come up with a morning light
favorite there, but I think I made a choked cherry sherry. Okay,
this is the horse has been beaten eight times and
comes off, you know, two thorough beatings at Santa Anita.
But the horse has shown some run in the past
and has sprinted okay on dirt in the past, So
(52:35):
I think when all is said and done, she might
go favored.
Speaker 3 (52:39):
Yep, Okay, Yeah, she's coming in from two races at
Santa Anita and her Northern cal races. As Vince said,
we're yeah, some encouraging races there. It's a maiden race
at a short distance of.
Speaker 4 (52:51):
Five and we mentioned Tim McKenna has increased presence this year. Well,
we've already got two pretty short priced to Mechana horses
on opening day. That's true.
Speaker 3 (52:59):
Yeah, okay, that's some selections, some sports shorts. Time for
our trivia to end things. Last question just last week
was that Peaceful Wings and Share the Night. Those two
brood mares are tied with progeny earnings at Emerald Downs
forty six wins. Their sons and daughters have tallied forty
(53:21):
six times each one of those mayors, and by Share
the Night, by the way, Share the Knight's going to
be part of our Hall of Fame exhibit with Washerman.
Washerman's out of Share the Night by k Hill Road
and Share the Night had six different sons and daughters
in training at Emerald Downs in twenty ten, all in
(53:43):
the Howard Belvoir Barn. So that is a racing oddity. Anyway,
As I kind of weave and wind around here a
little bit, the question was who's number three behind Share
the Night and Peaceful Wings. I gave just a tiny
little hand about. You know, if you think about who's
winning and stuff, Well, Mike mans Goold won twenty six
(54:04):
races and he is out of Shadoodle and she also
produced no Flies on Doodle who won eight times here.
So number three is Shadoodle behind Peaceful Wings and Share
of the Night. Michael Tarlow got that. I you know what,
I don't have the number written down. I think it's
(54:25):
thirty nine thirty nine progeny wins for Shadoodle.
Speaker 4 (54:29):
I mentioned I saw one at Santa Anita first or
a couple of weeks ago, out of Erica's Smile. Yes,
who's produced quite a few winners too.
Speaker 3 (54:36):
Yeah, she won our Oaks way back when shipped in
and won that race. Okay, congratulations Michael. Our new question
is we're starting a new season at Emerald Downs twenty
nine seasons in the past. Who is the oldest horse
to be the leading earner at the meeting? Which horse
(54:59):
is the oldest ho to be the leading dollar earner
at an Emerald Downs meeting? Send your answers to Trivia
at Emeraldowns dot com and get ready for opening Day
this Sunday, April twenty seventh, First race, one fifty pm.
This is horse Racing Northwest
macOS.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
It doesn't matter if you love craps, blackjack machines or
dining on the finest Asian, American and Salish cuisines. It
doesn't matter what you do or where you're coming from Mucos.
What you do is all at Muckleshoe, an easy drive
from wherever you are. All roads lead to Muckleshoe.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Mucosuit horse racing Northwest from Emerald Downs. It's an opening
(00:54):
week for a racing season and we're busy in the
building at Emerald Downs getting ready for opening day this Sunday,
April twenty seventh, first race, one fifty pm. Hope to
see you out at the track. Pretty decent weather forecast,
nothing like Thursday and Friday of the week, but it's
(01:16):
still looking pretty good. And we're gonna have the lidlifter
for twenty twenty five. Joe with the and Vince Brown here.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
Yeah, it's pretty exciting. That's season number thirty. Yeah for
Emerald Downs. Can you believe that? And we kind of
ease into it, Joe, as we've been talking about one
racing day Sunday, April twenty seventh, opening week, and then
the big Saturday, May third, Kentucky Derby Day card and
then in week three we go to Saturday and Sunday,
(01:44):
May tenth, eleventh. We do that for I think it's
either three or four weeks, and then beginning Friday, June sixth,
we go Friday, Saturday Sunday post times this year one
fifty pm. It's up a little earlier from past and
once Fridays come on board seven o'clock.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
So there's a quick schedule setting from Vince brun our
director of media Relations, and Vince, let's get right into
the Emerald Racing Club. You guys got horses.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
Now, we got two of them, and in fact, as
we speak, they're en route from Phoenix via Van I
think they go up through Twin Falls, Idaho that way.
It's about you know, Joe Toy back at his barn
has the exact mileage between her Paradise and Emerald Downs.
They got a little signed because he's done it for
every year, and I think it's fourteen hundred and eighty
(02:32):
miles depending on which route you take. But yeah, so
we'll have two here. We're having a little get together
Saturday to meet the horses, and Scott Tubbs having a
pretty good meet down at Phoenix will be up to
say hi to everybody and then right into opening day
on April twenty seventh. As for the Racing Club, we
hope to have a starter here pretty quick, so we
(02:53):
got a couple mirrors this year. As it turns out,
you never know how those things are going to work out,
but they look good. They'll look like they'll we try
to get things that fit the racing program here so
we'll get some action, okay, And people can still join
the club of course, yes, just Vince vatamiraldowns dot com
or called two five three two at eight seven seven
two three. We've got room for you. In fact, someone
(03:16):
you know, Joe just registered this week, Julie Nakahara, Oh
very good. Had a nice chat with her. She was
talking about how she used to do the Kjar reports
for you and uh had a lot of horses with
Roy Lum over the years, and uh, yeah, it's exciting
to get people like that involved.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
The Emerald Racing Club. Five hundred dollars is your one
time fee. Plus you do need to pay for your
racing Commission license, owner's license, but no other bills. And
that just is a nice perk because as a horse owner. Typically,
you know, you do have your training bills and every
once in a while there's a vet bill as well,
(03:58):
and they do come month This doesn't come monthly, Vince, No.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
But we try to teach people so when they do
go on their own, they'll know the expense is involved.
Depending on your particular trainer. Here at the track, it's
about seventy dollars a day right now, I would say
for most of them, and if you times that by thirty,
it comes out to about twenty one hundred twenty two
hundred dollars a month per horse in training bills. So
(04:22):
if you form your own little syndicates, you know, you
can break up the cost quite a bit. Or as
you said Joe in the racing Club, you just pay
one time and then you're good for the year.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
All right, Well, we are set. The entries have been
drawn for opening day this Sunday, April twenty seventh. We
have a seven race card. Entries are a little bit
light for the first week, but folks, it's gonna definitely
grow from there because we do and we are going
to have close to two hundred more horses on the
grounds for this meeting than we did last year or
(04:55):
the previous few seasons. So we're going to have some
good field size up coming entries available at equabase dot
COMDRF dot com, Daily Racing Formal be out. It's time
to get handicapping for Emerald Downs for twenty twenty five
Opening Day. Some of the other things going on, we're
going to have a memorial brief memorial service for Greg McComb.
(05:20):
He was a full time Emerald Downs employee going back
to nineteen ninety six, drove the water truck every year
and unfortunately Greg did pass from cancer last fall, and
his partners and the maintenance shop and the track crew
and anybody else is going to join in a little
(05:42):
service down by the Winter Circle well before the first
race on Sunday to remember and honor Greg McComb. We're
going to introduce the jockeys as we do on opening Day,
and we're going to have some new names there.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
Yeah, we'll talk more about that as in fact, we'll
have one of them on the show today, a guy
named Frank Alvarado, who's got quite a resume, will go
over in a little bit. But yeah, you know, with
the situation in Northern California, several of them writers from
down there are going to try their luck here this year.
I know a couple from last year that won't be back,
(06:19):
I guess Carlo Lopez and Luis Ria. So that does
open up some wins there in the jockeys room, but
it's still going to be ultra competitive, I think this
year for sure.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
You know, Alex Cruz will soon be here. In fact,
he's named on Horses Opening Day. Yes, he is getting
for his sixth consecutive Emerald Downs title. He's already broken
the record here in Washington State for five consecutive titles
at one track. You did that last year. Manuel Americano boy,
(06:50):
he won the meet at Fresno after leaving here late
last or last September. And then he also is going
to win the meet at Terre Paradise.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
As we mentioned, he went into today with a seventy
nine to sixty one lead in the standings, eighteen ahead.
And that's been a pretty tough meat down there with
a lot of writers. So how far he's come in
one year is pretty remarkable. Yeah, So he'll be he'll
be tough. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
So again, as Vince said, Frank Alvarado joining us on
this edition of Horse Racing Northwest, as will Mike Seeley,
the writer for the Daily Racing Form, new to that
position this year. Not not a guy that's unknown in
the Seattle area as far as writing and sports writing.
(07:36):
So Michael joined us. Hey, remember the Los Margerita's Cafe
is open now. It's open Wednesday through Sunday in the
Stable area, replacing the name Quartershoot Cafe, Lost Marks Cafe,
some really good fair.
Speaker 5 (07:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Little Spanish influence on some of the dishes, of course,
but a lot of your regular favorites as well, for
both breakfast and lunch. We're going to be doing the
where are they nows, which air before the first race
on each race day at Emerald Downs. Then they go
to Emerald Downs YouTube channel. Reba is Tops is the
(08:11):
first where are they Now? She did pass away last year,
but it hasn't been that long and she was Washington
Horse of the Year in twenty ten. But she was
a tremendous producing broodmare and also a third career after
they retired her from being a broodmare, she was a
surrogate mother and did a great job there. You'll find
(08:33):
out about her her whole career there on our where
are they now on Sunday. What about the twelve percent
takeout on pick threes? That's outstanding.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
It is outstanding, and I look forward to playing that
myself this year. I like, you know, we all got
our kind of wagers we like, right, but I tend
to play. I like to figure out who's going to
win the race and not so much who's going to
run second and third. So consequently usually make win bets
and daily double bats and pick three, so that'll be
(09:05):
right in my particular wheelhouse. So that's twelve percent is
you're gonna see some outstanding payoffs this year on your
pick threes.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
That is fantastic because pick three wagers here at Emerald
downs in the past and around the whole nation at
least twenty percent. So twelve percent more money being returned
to winning wagers pick threes at Emerald downs twelve percent
this year. We're gonna have the penny breakage as well.
That's to the horse player's advantage. Also, hey, the Seattle
(09:35):
Times is going to offer good coverage again. Scott Hansen
has done so many fantastic articles over the year, but
day to day racingfo as well.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
And we all saw the nice job Scott did on
the industry of the status of the industry on racing
in Washington last month. He'll have a nice story on
opening day. A shout out to Paul Barrett, their sports editor. There.
You know, it's hard to battle like the Seahawks in
this network and they get all the coverage and you
(10:07):
know they keep track of hits and all that and
marketing and the numbers are what they are. But they've
been very fair to us. So yeah, they'll continue to
run our entries and results, which is not something you
can take for granted in this day and age with
papers around the country. And so I shout out to
Scott Hansen, a fine rider and nose horse racing, and
Paul Barrett their sports editor.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
That is great. Yeah, entries and charts in the Seattle
Times newspaper again at Emerald Downs this year, so we're
thankful for that. Let's see, the building will not be open.
This is not this coming Monday Tuesday, but starting May
fifth and sixth, Monday and Tuesday, Emerald Downs will not
(10:49):
be open on Mondays and tuesdays for full card simulcasting.
Her paradise is over. That was of you know, large interest,
so those days were pretty anyway, So we'll not be
open on Monday and Tuesday. Actually the snow Qualmi Casino
will there's new sports book will be open, and you
(11:09):
know then there's of course all the adw's Advanced deposit
wagerings that you can do over your phone.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
If there's a will, there's a way.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Yeah, you can still follow tracks whatever tracks you like
on Monday and Tuesday, but we won't be open starting
Monday May fifth, Tuesday May sixth, and that'll be continuing
on through the race meeting. All right. Some other things,
horses at Emerald Downs. We've got a lot of new barns,
as you'll see in the entries for opening day, meaning
(11:39):
new trainers, and we just talked about some jockeys. Well, hey,
it's going to be a different year. It's never too
far to off to think about the Long Acres Mile Sunday,
August seventeenth. No five star General this year, after five
consecutive gallant and thrilling performances in the mile.
Speaker 4 (11:59):
Events that he'll be impossible to replace, of course, but
the mile is still on the radar of all the
horsemen on the West Coast, and you know, the local leader,
of course, would be slewsed to his Whiz and just
looking I haven't actually seen work with the times he's
been working look great. So you know Tom Wenzel knows
his horse there and he'll be a force. And you
(12:23):
know we've talked with John Parker about the Washington horse
of the year, Lonesome Boy, perhaps making his way west.
He has been at animald Downs before. And we'll have
some handicapped stars developed throughout the year, right, So definitely yeah,
And the big big change fans will see this year
is just the stake stays, you know. That's right. Most
(12:47):
of our stakes will be concentrated onto four programs, including
six on Sunday, August seventeenth, led by the Mile.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
That's right, That is the big day, August seventeenth. We'll
have six stakes races on that day.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
We'll be busy beavers that week. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Papa's Golden Boys also doing really well. He won that
really nice five and a half for a long sprint
early last meet. It was on and off track. I
thinks loosed his Whiz was fourth in there, but he's
training very well. For Vince Gimpson, now a nine year old,
is Papa's Golden Boy.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
He'll be fun to watch because, as we saw last year,
he popped fresh. So I got to think what he's got.
We might see his first out. Yeah, he's certainly amongst
the list of all time favorites here at Emerald Downs.
Just amazingly fast some of those races when he was
four and five years old. Around the turn he was
just a blur. Yeah, he's going about as fast as
(13:45):
a thoroughbred can go.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
He had a second in the Long Acres Mile and
Justice his whiz when those contemporaries are back. Some of
the claiming horses that we're expected to see. Last year's
claimer of the meetings risingly perfect. Just one again down
in Phoenix, Yep.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
Kevin Krieger up and.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
Eleven year old.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
Now, yeah, he held off a late clothes but he
is just racehorse, that guy. And he I think he
remember his career started at Woodbuy and I want to
say way back in twenty sixteen and is eleven. He
is eleven. Yeah, so he's our defending claimer of the meat.
(14:27):
A couple other Joey here mentioned a couple other notable
claimers have been on the worktab as well.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
Exactly Executive chef five starts last year three wins in
two seconds. Dirt Road Red has had plenty of drills
for Candy Kreiderman. He was claimer of the meet in
twenty twenty three and then won three more last year.
He's eight for fifteen at Emerald Down's Dirt Road Red
kremden Men had an outstanding season last year. She's coming
(14:55):
off a real good race in Phoenix. Yeh, pistol Power
the eleven year old is and looking at the media
guy that you put together that's available at emeraldowns dot com,
I think he's the only horse that's active among horses
with eleven winds or more.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
Yeah, that's kind of surprised that and I did double
check that list just to make sure of it that
is correct. One thing I've always loved about Emerald Downs
is we see a lot of these venerable claimers from
year to year because they get the winner off, yeah,
and they come back fresh, and like any athlete, you know,
mentally and physically, sometimes you just need to get away, right.
You know, they love to run and all that, but
(15:33):
you know, the aches and pains can kind of catch
up with you through a grueling season and sometimes mentally
you get a little off too, and these old horses
like that, they just come back and as a fan,
it's fun to see. You know, we always see steaks
horses year to year, but to see some of these
claimers come back year to year and strut their stuff
is a lot of fun.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Love to see it. Yeah, and that works to our
advantage being a little bit isolated up here with many barns.
Take the fall and winter to spring off. Okay, and
Jen Tong is noted for running second, Yeah, but he's
been breaking through of late.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
Got a couple of wins for our good friend Wayne
Williams down in Vancouver, Washington. Joe Toy has done a
whale of a job with this horse. I mean he
in one stretch he had nine seconds in eleven starts
and it was not second. Itightest, he was running hard.
He just one of those streaks where he'd get beat,
someone would beat him. Well, now he's put together a
couple of wins, so look out. I mean, this horse
(16:30):
was bred to be pretty decent and he's finding his
oats and he could be a pretty serious race horse
up here. Joe, I know they're heading up this way.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Jen Tong, j I N T N G. Those of
you that follow Emerald Downs know him for two or
three consecutive seasons, and he is on a little winning
streak now. Coastal Jazz is Washington's number one earner for
twenty twenty five. He won the inaugural at Sunray Park
last Saturday, a seventy five thousand dollars race. He's over
(17:01):
sixty thousand dollars in earnings. Justin Evans trainee bred by
El Dorado Farms, and he's a seven year old now
and never really been better. I see he's entered again
next Wednesday. He's in with Coastal Kid and a really
tough race down in Phoenix, but he's expected to be
up here. Coastal Jazz number one in earnings, ahead of
(17:24):
Huge Bigley and Lonesome Boy on that Washington bred list
early in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
You know one thing I've learned around here. If a
horse has the name Coastal in.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
It, usually a pretty good horse. He seems to be
usually have some speed. Yeah anyway, Yeah, Coastal Jazz won
the inaugural at Sunray Park and ran fast and doing so.
So there's some claimers and more we expect to see
performances from an Emerald Downs in twenty twenty five. We
(17:56):
mentioned Kentucky.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
Derby Day the schedule there and let's see, Uh yeah,
I think that's pretty good for our first segment. We
will come back in a moment and we will have
veteran jockey Frank Alvarado as our guest here on horse
racing Northwest.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Muchos.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
It doesn't matter if you love craps, blackjack machines or
dining on the finest Asian, American and Salish cuisines. It
doesn't matter what you do or where you're coming from Mucos.
What you do is all at Muckleshoe, an easy drive
from wherever you are. All roads lead to Muckleshoe.
Speaker 6 (18:46):
Mucosuit MCN's mojave turns her home with sweet Northern Saint
Im on side. Silver wagon to the outside comes Try Martini,
Summer book is there. It is Mucken's mojave and he's
still in front. Sixteenth to go, here's silver wagon, Try
(19:06):
Martini and summer book closing late, but McCann's mojave wins it.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
That was the Sunshine Millions Classic of two thousand and
seven at Gulfstream Park. That was an interesting series. West
Coast horses cow breds against East Coast horses. Florida Bread's
for several years had some big races, and McCann's Mojave
won it in seven. And before we get to our guest,
(19:36):
who was the winning rider that day, Vince Brune knows
the McCann's Mojave story quite well.
Speaker 4 (19:44):
Yeah, mccan's Mahavey bred and owned by a good friend
of mine, Mike Wooman for many years director of publicity
at Santa Anita, and the horse had gone a little sour,
so he shipped it up to Steve Speck at Golden
Gate and they switched writers to Frank Albarado in Lo
and behold, he wins three straight, including the one million
dollar Sunshine Millions Classic. But Frank is far from a
(20:07):
one hit wonder. Listen to these stats. Joe four thousand
and ninety three career wins, seventeen grated wins, over ninety
million in person earnings and maybe next to Russell Bays
the most successful jockey the last twenty five years in
Northern California. Frank Alvarado, I would say so.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
And Frank's joining us right here on horse racing Northwest Frank.
Uh that that race brings back some memories.
Speaker 7 (20:35):
Huh Alla alaa memory Alla. I remember. I remember one
morning he called me a song. He's a song. I
think I have something good from Donsau. When are you working?
I say, yeah, no brawling, And soon I work at
a hole for the first time I thought, I I say, wow,
(20:58):
I think we want to have fun with Heydang. We
wined suns a million. We win at least four I
think four three est in Golden Game.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Oh yeah, and that was a nice paycheck from that
Sunshine millions when Frank how about it? That was great,
A nice chunk to win a million dollar race. And
I know he was a bit of a long shot
that day. Part of the reason was is because he
was at the East Coast.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
He had thirty three to one.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Thirty three to one, okay, well, great job. And Vince
you said that was his third winning a row with
Frank on him.
Speaker 4 (21:37):
I believe, so. Yeah, and he had gotten really good
and uh, just an amazing run. I'll never forget seeing
Mike after the race. You know, you start screaming. Only
he was he was not in Florida. His brother represented
him down there, so he was watching on the TV
and just watching a guy watch his horse win a
one million dollar race. That was pretty exciting.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
I remember it well because Mike as you men the media,
fellow media member, and that's pretty good hit for a
media guy to win a million dollar race. Frank Alvarado
a board, Frank, your career has just been outstanding, as
Vince mentioned the over four thousand wins. Uh, where are
you from and how did you get going in the
US the United States?
Speaker 7 (22:18):
Well, I'm from I'm from Pana Man.
Speaker 8 (22:21):
Uh like riding.
Speaker 7 (22:23):
Who is in my blow? Because my my my father
he was a trainer, my brother he's riding, and my uncle.
I'm pretty sure a lot of people know my uncle
in here, Victor Tea back in the seventy I think
in the seventy. Yeah, yeah, it's isn't the blow. I remember,
(22:43):
like yesterday when my father take me to the track
and uh, for the first time I see that big animal.
I just run away. I don't want to be a
part of this thing. I don't want to be a jockey.
I don't want to and uh, he he is a
is ah I teach you about I started to ride
a horsing thing. I'm seven year old.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Yeah, well, as you mentioned, it's in the family, and
you certainly got over that uh uh trepidation, little little
fear of horses when you were first young. Yeah, they're big,
but uh man uh And then Panama has such a
fantastic history, you know, just doing starting with Lafitte, Pinkai
Junior and of course Alex Salice. Uh boy, those are
(23:29):
two guys that did some good work before you.
Speaker 8 (23:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
Yeah, well, uh so you kind of worked your way
up to the Bay Area pretty early in your career,
didn't you.
Speaker 7 (23:44):
Two thousand, I moved my top two thousand and my
my and we we were raised in San Anita. But
it's really tough, is that if I name you or
the that thing, uh you know you. I cannot pick
(24:05):
one hole. If I ride one hole, I finished second.
The next time they want some big guy, I under
think I don't know one thing about me. I learned
a lot with the ride with this guy like Ping
Kail Jose, Chris McCarron, so Lee, I write it with
the best in the United States in the ninety with
(24:26):
the best, and I only nineteen, and uh I is
working really hard in but it's it's hard to get
him out. But anyway, I moved into Northern California in
one week. I take off right away. I win the
first week I writing in bay Medow. I think I
win four races right away that week and the and
(24:48):
go from there.
Speaker 8 (24:49):
Right away.
Speaker 7 (24:50):
I take off quick and go there in bay Medow.
I really yeah, all this training, they held me right away.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
They know.
Speaker 7 (24:58):
They see me that he can write, and they give
me a lot of shouting. Uh.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
I thank it from the well Vince.
Speaker 4 (25:05):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
You know Frank mentioned the guys down there at Santa
Nita when he was riding the people that were beating him,
just about everybody's in the racing Hall of Fame.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
There was like eight or nine Hall of famers and
Gary Stevens, Kent Desormo, the list goes on and on.
And Frank was holding his own down there. You know,
he wasn't It wasn't like he wasn't getting wins. But
the move to Northern California, like Frank said, he just
took off right there and uh he four thousand wins later,
you know, here he is. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
And of course Russell Bays was well established, but you
certainly found your niche and Rode for a lot of
different barns. What uh, what did you What do you
do well as a jockey? I mean, you know, you
guys need to do a lot of things. There's a
few decisions to make in a raise. You want to
get out of the gate. What do you perceive yourself? Well,
(25:56):
I think I do that a little better than the
next guy. What what are some of your attributes?
Speaker 7 (26:02):
Well, one thing about me, I just tried to get
it get a good position right away, and I tried
to don't get trouble. But racing sometimes you know, you
gain trouble and sometimes the realist open. But I just
tried to at least get a good position. Like Roussell
(26:22):
always told me, when right with Roussell, When Rossell ride
nine to five and either second, joy Rosso is always
right with me. So you know, he had to beat
me what I did him, and I just I just
learning a lot of things from Rossell too.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
Yeah, he started that dominance around nineteen seventy nine eighty
in the Bay Area, and of course he teamed up
with Jerry Hollendorff and Rode first call for him. Who
are some of the trainers you really respected in your
running Northern California I.
Speaker 7 (26:56):
Paid a lot of If he's paid a team, mcanna
is almost I win't racing for everybody in Northern California.
They go horsemen, they know what to do and they
trust me to rifle.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
Then yeah, and uh, Tim mccanna, I was just dominant
up here at Emerald Downs. He won ten training titles
in our first sixteen seasons. And uh, he kind of
relocated to Northern cal And boy, he's used you so much.
What do you respect about Tim as a trainer?
Speaker 8 (27:33):
Thing?
Speaker 7 (27:34):
Uh? Thing is a good horseman. Thing is almost seven
day a week in the racing, and he's every morning
he's there and he I respect the thing. He know
what he's doing. I respect that and he knowing Like
I said, he throws me when I rifle hang one thing.
The thing never yell at me or screaming you spent
(27:57):
I respect hand like like a horseman. But th thing
is a good horseman.
Speaker 8 (28:02):
Gag I am.
Speaker 7 (28:03):
He gave me a lot of chot to win races
for him.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
You know that's a good point about Tim. Not a
he's not a yeller at all, but he's extremely perceptive.
Speaker 4 (28:11):
Vince. Yeah, Frank, Uh, I read where you are like
living within five minutes away from the Pleasanton Racetrack, which
unfortunately is closed this year. So we're seeing guys like you,
Francisco Duran, Sylvio Amador. It's great to have you up here.
How hard is it for you to to kind of
leave what's been your home?
Speaker 7 (28:33):
Honestly, I gotta go. Honestly, it's it's still her. It's
sture because when I heard placing to when I'm raising,
I just told my wife, I say, I know I'm
fifty sick, but if we're racing in Pleasington, I'll be
righted for more three more years. Guy live right by
the five many from three many from Pleasington and Placington.
(28:56):
It is as a good rastaurant and it's a lot
of people around pleasant Tong is a lot of people
got money. But it's to her, we're not raising, and
what's some raising? This is happening. Everybody had to move
and take a different way. I know it's not be
easy for me in going in at all down, but
(29:17):
I know one thing I know what to do. I'd
be working. I want to work in hard every morning.
I hopefully they're going to give me one more shot.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
I don't think that's going to be that much of
a problem, you know. I mean, it's a new place
and you want to establish yourself. But your name is
so well known in your resume, and you do have
Tim mccanna in your corner, I know so. Uh, and
he's going to have a lot more horses up here
this year than he's had the past few years. Frank
lives near Pleasanton. Huh, Frank, what's your favorite restaurant in Pleasanton?
(29:49):
There's only like sixty of them to choose from, honestly.
Speaker 7 (29:54):
Honestly, I like every is good, and I just want
to say one thing about em I want to say
thank you to Fishing, ste Fisher and Jackie. Let me
stay with this guy, and they showed me Monday. I
work a horse on Monday from Fishing and Fisher drive me,
(30:16):
give me his throw and uh take me to somewhere
every It's really nice where we are going to live too,
it's really nice.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
That is great, Yeah, Steve Fisher and Jackie Navari.
Speaker 5 (30:29):
Steve.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Steve was in the Northwest for a long time, long Acres,
Portland Meadows, Emerald Downs, and good to have him back.
And sounds like he's treating you right as well as
you deserve the respect man with your career. And are
we going to see you uh in the second week
of the season. Uh, Kentucky Derby Day.
Speaker 7 (30:50):
I'm Knockingentucky Derby Day.
Speaker 8 (30:53):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (30:54):
But my plan is May thing, okay, very good, Yep,
that'll be our third weekend.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
It'll be a two day weekend May tenth and eleventh,
Saturday and Sunday. Look for Frank Luca. Look for Frank
Alvarado to be named on horses at Emerald Downs and
and keep riding those great races that have earned him
a fantastic career already. Frank, thank you so much for
(31:25):
joining us.
Speaker 5 (31:26):
And anything very good.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
We'll see you up here in a couple of weeks
and take care and see you then.
Speaker 7 (31:36):
All right, I see you in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
Thank you, Frank.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Frank Alvarado over four thousand wins. He's going to make
his name in the jockey standings at Emerald Downs. You
know that, Vince, you know, writing a lot for Tim mccanna.
I'm sure. I mean that relationship has produced a lot
of success the last ten to fifteen years.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
I like what Frank said there. Like most riders, you know,
you ask them what a style is and it just
boils down to they're in the right place at the
right time on their horse. They know their horse and
they know what's kind of the race is going to
shape up, and they're in that right spot and if
the horse is willing and has got it, they'll get
them to the winter circle. It's just as simple as that, yep.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
And you know, a guy like Frank Alvarado, you're going
to see him winning on horses that he's probably never
been on before. And a really good jockey can do
that because well, they look at the form, they talk
to the trainer, but you know they do get cues
as well as the race horsemanship. Yeah, exactly, and they
(32:40):
take advantage of what they're feeling underneath them that they've
felt so many different times before. Thanks to Frank for
joining us. And you have a okay, you've got a
story a little bit later. Yeah, we'll take a time out.
We'll come back with Mike Seeley of the Daily Racing
Form Here on horse Racing Northwest. The drills of Live
Race return to Emerald Downs Sunday, April twenty seven. Get
(33:03):
ready for a spring and summer of fast horses and
Family Fund enter the Fabulous Hat and Best Dress contest
on Kentucky Derby Day Saturday May third. Go to Emeraldowns
dot com to purchase tickets for all your favorite events
including Corgi Races, t Rex Races, Third of July, Fireworks Spectacular,
and Indian Relay Racing. Don't miss Opening Day Sunday, April
(33:25):
twenty seventh, only at Emerald Downs Horse Racing Northwest at
Emerald Downs Opening Week, our thirtieth season of racing. At
nineteen ninety six was the first. This is our thirtieth year.
It starts Sunday, April twenty seventh, first race one fifty
pm and new to the daily Racing form covering Emerald
(33:49):
Downs for twenty twenty five. A veteran rider here in
western Washington. We had a rider on last segment. We've
got to write her this time. He's Mike Seeley. Mike,
thanks for joining Vincent myself here on our podcast.
Speaker 8 (34:06):
It's my pleasure, fellows. Thanks for having me. Looking forward
to coming up the track a lot this summer.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
A yeah, and you you have had a passion a
love of horse racing, even though you've been riding in
different areas for much of your career tell us about
your horse racing background, so I.
Speaker 8 (34:25):
Don't have like one of these romantic here's how I
fell in love with horse racing stories like a lot
of people do. So I apologize up front that I
kind of got into it in college just it's a
way of entertaining myself. It was a way to gamble
where I felt like there was some intellect involved, which
there clearly is yep. And then you know, I'd moved
(34:49):
to Saint Louis some years after college, and we'll go
to the track there, Fairmont Park in southern Illinois, and
you know, I wanted to find a way to basically
cover my losses as a gambler, So I started being
a stringer for the daily Racing form after a Mont Parker.
Did that for a couple of years, and I kind
of deepened my appreciation for the sport and the immense
(35:12):
amount of knowledge that it takes to to really play
it well and enjoy it to its fullest.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
Mike Seeley, you remember saying when your parents would say
someone's a sharp cookie, kind of that's but Mike is.
He's He's a great writer and a dogged reporter, and
I've read some of his stuff and admired it, and
you've probably seen it like in publications like the Seattle Weekly,
and I know as a handicapper he's outstanding. Having seen it, Mike,
(35:39):
you're going to be churning out some copy here for
Daily Racing Form kind of layout. What what?
Speaker 8 (35:46):
Uh?
Speaker 4 (35:47):
How your new job with the Racing Form is uh?
Is going to unfold?
Speaker 8 (35:51):
Yeah, I'm a little bit of a jack of all
trades and thanks for calling me an outstanding handicapper. You
have a much higher opinion of myself in that regard
than I do. But my job is sort of a
jack of all trade type deal. I do a lot
of copy editing at pieces. I do some affiliate writing,
which I could explain but don't want to bore your listenership.
And then now I'll be covering Emerald downs with a
(36:16):
couple of race advances a week, some track notes, recapping
the Steaks days. I know, I'm excited to see that,
but there are big time Steaks days this year. I'll
popped in that. I'll make for some fun days of racing,
but that'll be the gist of it. I'll also do
a little bit of coverage of Hastings, which feels like
a sister track to you, guys, since you have the
stakes named after one another. So that's kind of the
(36:38):
gist of it. I'll be learning from the horsemen learning
from you guys. I'm sure I do know a fair
amount about horse racing, but I learned something new every day,
mainly due to the savants that have worked at the
racing form for so many years. That made me feel
like I still have a lot lot to learn.
Speaker 4 (36:56):
Mike, you mentioned Saint Louis, but you are a native
Northwestern I know your father worked I believe the Chamber
of Commerce up in Everett.
Speaker 8 (37:04):
Yeah, yeah, that's correct. I grew up in North Seattle
in Wedgwood. When I last visited, you guys are one
of the last times I visited. We pretty much established
the old two degrees of separation rule. If you grew
up in the Pacific Northwest.
Speaker 5 (37:20):
Thank you.
Speaker 8 (37:20):
Guys. Both know each of my parents or one of
you knows my dad, one of you knows my mom.
They've been around here forever too. But yeah, it was
very deep Northwest roots. The only time I've lived outside
the city limits of Seattle, and this includes college, was
when I was in Saint Louis for four years. Wow,
writing for the DRF and the Riverfront Times, the newspaper
out there.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
And Mike, we're Yeah, we've got the four Big Steaks
days where boy, yeah, you guys, you and Vince are
going to be really busy at the keyboard those days,
and I'm going to be busy, uh, broadcasting. But you know,
the stars pretty much will align on those days. And uh,
(38:01):
we went over a lot of the claiming horses that
are returning. I think we're going to have a pretty
good lineup this year. I don't know how much you've
dug into that yet, but you certainly remember a lot
of the names from last year, correct.
Speaker 8 (38:13):
Sure, Yeah, and I'm looking forward to the California invasion
if you will this year. Yeah. That'll make for I
imagine fuller fields and more competitive fields once everyone's there
at the track.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
Yeah, we just had Frank Alvarado on and he's going
to be here the weekend of May tenth and eleven,
and he's going to be riding at Emerald Downs bringing
his four thousand wins plus, so that that's a huge
addition to our jockey colony.
Speaker 8 (38:43):
Yeah, that's a good gill. Yeah, it'd be really.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
Cool gonna where you gonna put Mike Vince when he's
up and he needs to do.
Speaker 4 (38:50):
His work, he'll be right next to the window there
overseeing the track. Well, well, we'll make sure Mike is
is uh well taken care of for sure. Yeah, Mike's
been where you.
Speaker 8 (39:00):
Guys can seat my daughters up on the roof somewhere.
Speaker 4 (39:02):
We'll find room. That's right. You'll be babysitting a couple
of times too, Right, Well, they've.
Speaker 8 (39:08):
Gone to the age where I don't really need to
babysit them. I just need a referee at times because
they're pretty close in the age. And then, yeah, they
love coming to the track. It's such a great family
environment and I've enjoyed it for a long long time,
not only as a better but also a dad.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
Yeah, and your gals, your daughters are having sports careers
of their own kind of moving on, don't they.
Speaker 8 (39:31):
Yes, I feel like that's how I spend most most
of my time is running them around a soccer and
track and lacrosse and basketball. And I do know, I
play my happy our schedule around where their practices are,
so that works.
Speaker 4 (39:44):
Out to that is great. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
So yeah, one thing we haven't talked about in this podcast, Vince,
is that you know, Emerald Downs was up over ten
percent in attendance last year, and you know, let's face it,
that was due to these fantastic promotional family fun days,
of which Mike just referenced.
Speaker 4 (40:02):
Yeah, and we are, and Mike mentioned it's a fun
place for youngsters to come out. A lot of people
have the old cliche of the racetrack with you know,
your grizzly veterans. We got those too, but it's there's
room for everybody. And one of the nice things about
I think coming to the racetrack is you're not in
a stationary seat like you are in a ballgame. It
(40:23):
kind of encourages, you know, moving around a little bit,
going to the paddock or whatever. Everyone has their own
idea of a day at the races, but if you
get one of those nice summer days at Emerald Downs,
I don't think you can beat it.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
And Mike go ahead, Mike.
Speaker 8 (40:38):
Yeah, Well, I wanted to say, I feel like Emerald
Downs was way ahead of the curve in designing the
racetrack back back in the nineties. I mean, it saw
a future where massive grandstands and kind of an old
school stadium experience wasn't going to be what people wanted.
It was going to be more of an open space
(40:59):
kind of family friend, walk around, see the horses, grab
a beer type situation, and it's just designed perfectly for
what horse racing's live product has become.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
In my opinion, that is great. And you know, the
new trainers from the Bay Area, they're going to see
people at the track, you know, I mean, let's face
at the bottom line is money you run for, uh,
And we're going to be fine on that. We're going
to have a good season. But they're also going to
enjoy the race day atmosphere at Emerald Downs over a
(41:31):
lot of the things they've seen the past few years.
And another thing Mike mentioned, let's let's bring a friend
to the track this year, because early on Mike mentioned, you,
you know, as far as wagering, if you have a
little bent for wagering, horse racing has a problem to solve.
There's some cerebral things to it, and so many people
embrace that. And then of course the payoffs are a
(41:54):
lot higher than even money which you get in sports betting.
Speaker 4 (41:58):
Yeah, most sports bets. That's one of the things I
enjoy about racing is definitely audience participation. And if you
enjoy solving puzzles and uh seeing how a pace is
going to play out, and you factor in the connections
of the horse and all these other nuances workouts, distances,
track conditions, uh you know, track biases, you really can't
(42:21):
beat it and if you're right, you get rewarded.
Speaker 8 (42:24):
And Mike Uhl at our fingertips these days is phenomenal.
I'll get a little plug in for for d r
F dot com. Yes, if you you know, if you
go to our website and there's just a treasure trove
of data past performances, be it for the Kentucky Derby,
a really any race, anywhere you want to diaga into, workouts,
(42:45):
clocker reports, video, it's all there at your disposal at
DRF dot com. Well worth a visit if you want to.
Speaker 4 (42:51):
Do it right.
Speaker 3 (42:53):
I'm still a dear d r F guy when it
comes to past me, Mike, I'm used to it for
a lot of decades and I'm I'm not leaving. So
there's that. And how about the twelve percent takeout on
pick three wagers? Does that interest you at all?
Speaker 8 (43:08):
Yeah, I'll be I'm not a big pick three okay myself,
I know people who are, but you know that reduced
takeouts and I believe it's twenty to twelve. It's fantastic
and I'll be mentioning that at my opening day preview,
which might show up online tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (43:22):
Great, very good, Mike. You know, great to have you
part of Emerald Downs coverage this year, and I really
mean that, and I think our fans and the horsemen
will will appreciate it too. So let's get going.
Speaker 8 (43:37):
Huh, you got it, guys. I'm excited to be doing
this with you.
Speaker 3 (43:42):
Thank you so much, Mike Seeley.
Speaker 4 (43:44):
Thank you Mike.
Speaker 3 (43:45):
Now on the Daily Racing Form. Yeah, thanks so much, Mike.
We'll see you at the track.
Speaker 8 (43:50):
All right, fell Let's take care take.
Speaker 3 (43:51):
Care of Mike Seeley. Yeah, insightful guy.
Speaker 4 (43:55):
And you know he really is a good writer too,
And yeah, I got a little background in that and
I can appreciate a good wordsmith and Mike is that.
And he's a good reporter too.
Speaker 3 (44:06):
Fantastic. Yeah, I know he'll be an outstanding edition. I can.
You know, don't know him quite as well as you do,
but we've spent plenty of time around him. He's been
coming up to our little December twenty sixth get togethers, and.
Speaker 4 (44:20):
You've seen he knows how to get involved.
Speaker 3 (44:21):
That's right. Okay, we've got our final segment. We're in
our final segment, so it's time for some sports shorts
and Opening Day. Well, we've had, you know, twenty nine
of them in the past, and of course the first
race ever was an Opening Day was one for Emerald
Downs history Strawberry Morn winning the US Bank Stakes by
(44:46):
ten lengths race one back on June twentieth, nineteen ninety six.
Another kind of Opening Day oddity was in two thousand
and seven, eight and nine the Long Acres Mile winner
several months in the future one the opening Night Feature,
(45:07):
the Great Face and seven Wasserman in eight and Assessment
in two thousand and nine. They all won the Opening
Night Feature in April and they went on to win
the mile that year. That's a three in a row
for you. And you know, we've had a lot of
really impressive jockey performances on Opening Day over the years.
(45:28):
I won't go into all those, but multiple winners, and
we'll try it again this Sunday, April twenty seventh. Let's
see I guess that was my sport short. So take
it away, Vince Well, I.
Speaker 4 (45:44):
Was going to do a little bit of an obituary.
Maybe not a lot of people in the Northwest realize
who Professor Gordon Jones was, But if you're around LA
in the seventies, eighties and nineties, every racing fan had
heard of Professor Gordon Jones. And he passed away this
week at age ninety five. What a good long run
he had. He headed up the coverage for the Los
(46:06):
Angeles Herald Examiner, and I'm going to tell you when
it came to racing coverage, that was like a page
and a half every day of detailed coverage with Bob
Mazerski's handicap, Jerry Antanucci handicapping, Gordon Joan with his handicap,
and his thoughts on the sport. And he was very opinionated,
but he was a very bright guy too. In fact,
I know, listening to Mike, I mentioned Mike Wilman. He
(46:29):
also does a radio show. He had on Al Michaels
the broadcast drawn last week and Al actually took a
social studies class when Gordon Jones was teaching at Arizona
State University, in the sixties, and he'd talked about they
had little signals if they both liked to horse at
Turf Paradise, to cut the class short and duck into
(46:50):
Gordon's car and they get over to the racetrack to
get down on the double like a true racing fan.
Kevin Modesty of the Daily News in Los Angeles had
one graph here I'll read. Gordon Jones had many career
options as a son of a Whittier College president, the
holder of a Bacheldor's degree from Whittier and a master's
(47:11):
from the University of Oregon, popular journalism professor at USC
Arizona State and Oregon in a math whiz who rated
third among two hundred and fifty thousand men from the
West Coast on a Korea War era Army intelligence tests.
But instead of choosing a life in government service or
writing about quote unquote serious subjects, or staying on the
academic track, Gordon devoted the better part of his life
(47:33):
to picking winning horses at the racetrack. So, yeah, Gordon
Jones passed away this week at ninety five, was still
doing handicapping seminars into his nineties in Las Vegas, and
I got to know Gordon a little bit, and he was,
you know, he was a smart guy and he would
let you know if he didn't agree with you. But
(47:54):
he was also a very generous and nice guy. And
he when I first started working for the Forum, he
went out of his way to try and help me
on a couple things there with writing styles and getting
things across or whatever. So is a generous man too.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
So one would remember things like that, you bet.
Speaker 4 (48:10):
And so I just wanted to pass along the death
of a real icon in horse racing.
Speaker 3 (48:16):
Very good. And was the Herald Examiner.
Speaker 4 (48:18):
That was a daily It was until it went out
of business in nineteen eighty nine, eighty nine, not long ago,
that long ago, And it was the Los Angeles Times,
of course had a great sports section. They covered racing
extensively as well. But if you talk to the real guys,
the real handache, it was the Herald Examiner. Was the
paper very good.
Speaker 3 (48:39):
Okay, I didn't mention training Day. That's a popular video
that we do once a week. We'll be shooting tomorrow morning,
Friday morning, so that'll be on Friday afternoon our training
day for this week, and then we'll be going to
a Thursday edition of training Day throughout the meeting, mixing
it up with the trainers and catching the horses out
(48:59):
there warnings at Emerald Downs. All right, that is some
sports shorts selections. Well, let's take a look. Vince is
our daily morning line pricemakers, so he foregoes making selections
on Emerald Downs races.
Speaker 4 (49:14):
I told you, Joe, I'll lead into your making a
pick here that although the fields weren't big, I really
struggle with it. So if you like something on Sunday
and you know something on a horse or whatever, you
might get a price. It's because Joe, you and mcgree.
There's some confusing races, a lot of horses that haven't
run at Emerald Downs, a lot of horses coming off layoffs,
a lot of new trainers getting involved. It's it's going
(49:36):
to be interesting. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (49:38):
Second races a five and a half fur long sprint
and it's the non winners of two for three and up.
I think Tim mccannon's horse is probably going to be
the favorite in their Blazing Team or Blazing pem.
Speaker 4 (49:50):
Yes em me, I made the horse eight to five
and I made Blaine Rights horse. I think it's mister
Executive five.
Speaker 3 (49:57):
To two seconds. You give mister Executive a shot to
beat the favorite in there. He his sprints, he can
get right into the race, stock the pace. He's got
excellent familiarity. He ended his three year old year on
a pretty good note as well, So he's a second favorite.
Speaker 4 (50:14):
He is. Yeah, the horse looks like I've been training
forwardly for sure?
Speaker 3 (50:17):
Right that too? Okay? The third race is a mile.
We've got a mile on opening day and this is
one of those races you're talking about, Wow, who's going
to go to the front. You know, I Fantastic Dream
did go to the front at pleasanton last October in one,
but he got, you know, some pretty slow fractions. Coastal Waters.
(50:37):
Here's a seven year old son of Coastguard out of
Winning Weave. That's all Washington. He's seven years of age.
He's run sixty one times and he's never raced an
Emerald downs.
Speaker 4 (50:47):
Which is the Yeah. And at the first glance, I
thought that horse look like the best horse on paper.
But you'll probably talk about it. There's one question mark.
Speaker 3 (50:56):
There's a question mark in that he doesn't he's number
one on dirt correct. He spent most of his career
on turf. I did notice his last race on dirt
wasn't bad though, he was third out of ten at
Phoenix quite a mile, so I'm going to pick him
to win. Manuel Americano a little bit of a weight
(51:18):
break for Sergio Garcia. There's not a lot of wind
machines in that race, but he's a good grinder, you know,
lots of seconds and thirds. So was he the morning
line favorite in there?
Speaker 4 (51:28):
I think so, yeah, darn it?
Speaker 3 (51:30):
Okay. And then the fifth race a couple of first
time starters in here. It's a sprint for made in
three year old phillies at the short distance of five furlongs,
and I took Bella chow Chow for trainer Coco Patino,
who had two races here at good strong levels last year.
(51:52):
Didn't show a ton of early gas, but you know,
was put away in mid August and that was it
for her two year old years. She's by Stanford out
of that former Emerald Downstakes winner, Reginella. Reginella's first full
so I gave her a nod Julian couton aboard and
she's it's a six horse field, so it's what she
probably five to two or so.
Speaker 4 (52:13):
Yeah, I think I made the three to one second choice.
I really struggled to come up with a morning light
favorite there, but I think I made a choked cherry sherry. Okay,
this is the horse has been beaten eight times and
comes off, you know, two thorough beatings at Santa Anita.
But the horse has shown some run in the past
and has sprinted okay on dirt in the past, So
(52:35):
I think when all is said and done, she might
go favored.
Speaker 3 (52:39):
Yep, Okay, Yeah, she's coming in from two races at
Santa Anita and her Northern cal races. As Vince said,
we're yeah, some encouraging races there. It's a maiden race
at a short distance of.
Speaker 4 (52:51):
Five and we mentioned Tim McKenna has increased presence this year. Well,
we've already got two pretty short priced to Mechana horses
on opening day. That's true.
Speaker 3 (52:59):
Yeah, okay, that's some selections, some sports shorts. Time for
our trivia to end things. Last question just last week
was that Peaceful Wings and Share the Night. Those two
brood mares are tied with progeny earnings at Emerald Downs
forty six wins. Their sons and daughters have tallied forty
(53:21):
six times each one of those mayors, and by Share
the Night, by the way, Share the Knight's going to
be part of our Hall of Fame exhibit with Washerman.
Washerman's out of Share the Night by k Hill Road
and Share the Night had six different sons and daughters
in training at Emerald Downs in twenty ten, all in
(53:43):
the Howard Belvoir Barn. So that is a racing oddity. Anyway,
As I kind of weave and wind around here a
little bit, the question was who's number three behind Share
the Night and Peaceful Wings. I gave just a tiny
little hand about. You know, if you think about who's
winning and stuff, Well, Mike mans Goold won twenty six
(54:04):
races and he is out of Shadoodle and she also
produced no Flies on Doodle who won eight times here.
So number three is Shadoodle behind Peaceful Wings and Share
of the Night. Michael Tarlow got that. I you know what,
I don't have the number written down. I think it's
(54:25):
thirty nine thirty nine progeny wins for Shadoodle.
Speaker 4 (54:29):
I mentioned I saw one at Santa Anita first or
a couple of weeks ago, out of Erica's Smile. Yes,
who's produced quite a few winners too.
Speaker 3 (54:36):
Yeah, she won our Oaks way back when shipped in
and won that race. Okay, congratulations Michael. Our new question
is we're starting a new season at Emerald Downs twenty
nine seasons in the past. Who is the oldest horse
to be the leading earner at the meeting? Which horse
(54:59):
is the oldest ho to be the leading dollar earner
at an Emerald Downs meeting? Send your answers to Trivia
at Emeraldowns dot com and get ready for opening Day
this Sunday, April twenty seventh, First race, one fifty pm.
This is horse Racing Northwest
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