Trainer Justin Evans is the father of three young children, two of whom love joining their dad on the Emerald Downs backstretch.
“My daughter [Addison] and [son] Austin are both at the barn from bell to bell – from 4:30 in the morning to when we leave at night,” said Evans, who pulled into his customary spot atop the Emerald win rankings this past weekend. “My daughter says she wants to be a jockey when she gets big. They have a rivalry between them. If one of Austin’s horses wins and hers doesn’t, she gets upset. It’s a sibling rivalry, and I’m stuck in the middle of it.”
But if there’s one horse in Evans’s barn who eases this tension, it’s 11-year-old gelding Surprsinglyperfect, whom Evans calls “a family favorite.” He also is astonishingly sharp for a gentleman of such advanced age, with four wins and two seconds from six starts this year, including a one-length win at a mile in his seasonal debut May 18 at Emerald.
That victory came in a starter allowance, with Surprsinglyperfect set to run the same distance in a $15,000 claiming tilt that goes as race 4 on Friday night’s seven-race card.
“I hate to match him up too tough anymore,” said Evans, who hurled the old fella into too deep a pond in last year’s $150,000 Longacres Mile, where he finished a distant eighth. “He’s getting some age on him. I just think to keep him competitive and doing good, he needs to be about that level. I don’t think I’d ever drop him to the bottom and get real aggressive. The unfortunate thing is, up here with the starter allowances, you can only win one of them.”
So here he is, 5 for 8 at Emerald and with top jockey Kevin Krigger aboard again after riding Surprsinglyperfect to wins in his last two starts, the first of which came at Evans’s winter headquarters of Turf Paradise. Their main competition in Friday’s race is the Isidro Tamayo trainee Anitanewmercedes, who, for the second straight race, gets the services of another top rider in Manuel Americano.
A 9-year-old gelding with 53 career starts under his belt, Anitanewmercedes made his Emerald debut June 6, finishing a game second to well-respected local runner Fifty Cinco over a distance of a mile, earning a Beyer Speed Figure of 82, the best last-out number in this field.
“That horse [Anitanewmercdes] is a horse to beat for sure,” said Evans, whose gelding notched a 78 Beyer last out. “He ran a really good race against Fifty Cinco the other day. Same kind of deal – an old class horse who likes to win races.”
Among four other rivals, the Joe Toye-trained I’m Noble looks most capable of springing an upset. He finished third behind Anitanewmercedes in that June 6 race, won two back in his 2025 Emerald debut, and has been on a nice form cycle while improving at age 5.
Mister Mafioso is likely to grab the early lead, but he appears to lack the stamina to hold off his more tactical and versatile rivals.
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