While the late Grade 1 winner Smiling Tiger was best known for his exploits in California, he continues to impact the goings-on at Emerald Downs. As of first post Friday, he had sired more winners (13) during the current meeting than any other stallion.
Smiling Goodbye, a 6-year-old owned and trained by Debbie Peery, is not among that baker’s dozen, having last won a race April 19 at Turf Paradise. But since returning to Emerald, he’s run a pair of races that give Peery plenty of hope for the future. Sunday, the gelding starts in a $10,000 starter allowance with a purse of $14,000 over one mile and 70 yards.
Prior to his April triumph, Smiling Goodbye had not won since May 2023, a victory at Emerald that compelled Peery to enter him in a pair of local stakes. He acquitted himself well but was slightly outclassed, a trend that continued until a recent decision by Peery to run him for a lower-level tag.
:: Access morning workout reports straight from the tracks and get an edge with DRF Clocker Reports
“I placed him a little above his class and he was just getting beat,” Peery acknowledged. “I needed to get his heart built back up. We ran him for $10,000 in Phoenix to get him eligible for the starters here. Nobody took him, so that was lucky.”
Were it not for a rough break from the gate that relegated him to the back of a seven-horse pack in a six-furlong sprint May 10, Smiling Goodbye might have prevailed. Normally a front-runner, he rallied gamely from far behind on a track that favored early speed that day to finish fourth, missing out on the top spot by just three-quarters of a length.
Off that hard-luck result, Peery stretched Smiling Goodbye out to a route June 13, something she hadn’t done with the horse since September 2023.
“There was just always something that came up and he just wasn’t ready to route,” Peery explained. “I’ve wanted to route him the whole three years I’ve had him. We’ll see how he does this time. Last time, he ran a great race. He just got outrun.”
In that mile and 70-yard race, Smiling Goodbye was forwardly placed by top jockey Manuel Americano before getting outlasted by two lengths by What a Dude, who finished in a meet-best time of 1:38.92. The effort earned Smiling Goodbye a Beyer Speed Figure of 75, his best mark since his last local win in May 2023.
On Sunday, his chief rivals will be a pair of 5-year-old Joe Toye trainees, I’m Noble and Mangia Pane. Both are closers in a race without much speed besides Smiling Goodbye, and both are coming off career-high Beyers that are the best last-out figures in the eight-horse field.
“I’m Noble, he was a little on the nervous side and too anxious to run and go, and if he didn’t get his own way, he’d pack it in,” Toye said. “We’ve resorted to taking him back, and he’s been okay to come from off the pace and come running.”
:: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.