50th Spokane Futurity At Playfair This Weekend

The last rich prize of the Inland Northwest horse racing season will be up for grabs this weekend when Playfair Race Course presents the 50th running of the Spokane Futurity.

Invest In Festin, victorious in the Juvenile His Stakes will join All West Futurity winner Toughy’s Gold and Chirrup, already a winner at the 1-mile distance, as the favorites in the final 2-year-old event of the season. Including $10,000 added, The Futurity, its purse fortified by a supplement from the Northwest Two-Year-Old Series, will gross more than $30,000.

Invest In Festin and Toughy’s Gold, which each have 15 points, also will race one another for the $5,000 consolation award in the Playfair Challenge Series.

The Spokane Futurity will highlight racing on Saturday afternoon. Racing also is scheduled for Friday, Sunday and Monday as Playfair heads into the final quarter of its 59th season. Post time Friday and Monday will be at 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday racing starts at 1:30.

Wagar in fine condition

Bruce Wagar, who is trying to lock up his second conditioning title, bumped his victory total to 24. Ray Tracy, the trainer of Invest In Festin, closed the gap by sending out four winners for a total of 16, five more than former jockey star Todd Stephens, who is third. Eads has ridden 67 winners and retains a comfortable margin over Darrell Brinkerhoff. However, Brinkerhoff rode 11 winners in the span of four race days for a total of 50.

Hillyard pays top price

Dan Hillyard paid the top price of $12,500 last Monday to purchase a son of Tough Knight at the 14th annual All West Yearling Sale. Two other colts, by Sportin Life and Lost Code, were knocked down for $10,000 each to DeBruycker and Co. and Jim Evans, respectively.

Seventy-eight horses, including those that failed to reach their reserve, passed through the ring, bringing an average price of $3,549. Although the number of entries decreased from 1994, the number actually sold increased to an all-time high of 29 for an average of $3,503.

Big bucks

When Tommy’s Diamond won last Saturday’s ninth race for a $61 payoff, he touched off the largest trifecta and second-largest exacta of the season. Tommy’s Diamond teamed with runner-up Capable Cutie and third-place favorite Grey Vista for a $1,795.50 trifecta payoff for $1. The $2 exacta paid $902.60.

Stat sheet

Washington-bred horses have won 238 of the 344 local races for 69.1 percent….. Favorites have been successful in 129 of the 372 races for 34.6 percent and have run third or better in 263 for 70.7 percent….. There have been 21 claims for $65,800, an average of more than $3,000 per claim….. Total attendance has reached 101,194 for 36 days for a daily average of 2,811 and wagering inched further ahead of the simulcast portion of last season to an average of $471,019.