Not accounting for border snafus, it takes three hours and change to get from Hastings to Emerald Downs when traffic’s moving smoothly. Given the close proximity, relatively comparable class of races, and similar meet dates, it would seem to make a ton of sense for Thoroughbreds to be whipping to and fro in trailers along the Pacific Northwest’s Interstate 5 corridor – but that hasn’t been the case this year.
“I used to run quite a few horses there,” Barbara Heads, a leading Hastings trainer, said of her prior sojourns to Washington. “Not so much lately, just with the border and everything’s made it a little more complicated, as well as the American dollar.”
Heads did travel south earlier this month for the $125,000 Longacres Mile with Apprehend, who finished ninth and saw a streak of five consecutive wins snapped. Among those victories was a score in the 1 3/8-mile BC Premier’s Handicap in October 2024, a race in which Soaringforthesun finished fifth.
If all goes as planned, Soaringforthesun will be added to the short list of Canadian interlopers to start at Emerald this year, as the 6-year-old gelding is entered in Friday’s fifth race, a $20,000 claiming contest that will be run at six furlongs. A homebred of David and Sylvea Gregory, they were scheduled to drive him south and transfer him into local trainer Robbie Baze’s barn.
A versatile runner and multiple stakes winner who has raced against far classier company than his six rivals here, Soaringforthesun will make his Emerald debut having won his only race over the prescribed distance. That win came in a restricted juvenile maiden race in 2021.
Soaringforthesun went on to enjoy hugely successful 3- and 4-year-old campaigns at Hastings, winning three stakes and placing in three others. Trained by Sylvea Gregory, he’s been stakes-placed this year as well, but his Beyer Speed Figures haven’t quite reached the career-best 81 he put up winning the Lieutenant Governor’s Handicap at Hastings in July 2023.
“He’s been running against a little tougher,” Baze said. “With the numbers he’s been putting up, it looks like he’ll fit really well here. We were gonna enter him in a $25,000 route, but the race didn’t go. Then they [the Gregorys] contacted me and said, ‘Let’s try this spot.’ ”
“From what I’ve seen, it looks like the class relief will help him. That’s what the Gregorys wanted to try – to get a little easier race to try and get a win for him.”
Standing in the way of an elusive 2025 win for Soaringforthesun will be Blaine Wright’s rail-drawn Elder Mack, a 4-year-old who seemed to figure things out in a 5 1/2-length win last out over Bluegrass Go Go and Whiskeyjack, who are both entered in Friday’s race. Should things get out of hand on the front end, the Jorge Rosales trainee Fifty Cinco has the tactical speed to surge late as he drops in class after an eighth-place finish in the Longacres Mile.
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