Emerald Downs | Flamethrowintexan hopes to win another Longacres Mile on Sunday

AUBURN — Here's Flamethrowintexan on Aug. 20, 2006: going stride for stride with Papi Chullo to win one of the most exciting stretch runs in the history of the Longacres Mile.

Here's the question for Sunday, Aug. 17, 2008: Can the 7-year-old gelding come anywhere close to matching that performance after a 385-day layoff?

That's right, 385 days. Twenty days more than a year without a race. Can a horse — even a horse as good as Flamethrowintexan — be ready to run a Grade III stakes race for $300,000 against 11 Thoroughbreds after that much down time?

Kay Cooper, assistant trainer to her father, Jim Penney, says the horse is in the right frame of mind and has the body to do it. "Hopefully, we have him ready to go."

Flamethrowintexan — "Tex" to his friends — raced five times after the 2006 Mile win, notching a first place in the $141,250 Bay Meadows Breeders' Cup Handicap in October 2006. But in 2007 there were two disappointing finishes at Emerald Downs before Tex was diagnosed at the Washington State veterinary school with a recurring leg injury.

"We followed the protocol laid out by WSU," Cooper said, "and the owners also gave him extra time off."

The owners are Paul and Lori Heist of Kent. Thoroughbred owners since 1985, they claimed Tex for $62,500 at Hollywood Park in Inglewood, Calif., in 2004.

Bred in Florida (by Way West out of Wilaway), Flamethrowintexan has won $806,017 in 28 starts with a record of 15-4-2.

The plan was to give the horse a prep race this season at Emerald Downs, but that plan didn't work. An allowance race didn't fill, and Flamethrowintexan couldn't run the $50,000 Governor's Handicap on July 6 because of a bruised foot.

"That set him back 10 days and meant missing a couple of training sessions," said Cooper.

The decision on whether to enter him in the 73rd running of the Longacres Mile came down to a workout on Tuesday morning: Do well and he's in. Tex went five furlongs in 58-4/5 seconds, the fastest of eight horses training at that distance Tuesday. And, according to Cooper, "he was bucking and playing on the hot-walker the next morning, so obviously it did not take that much out of him."

Tex was in.

But without Ricky Frazier, his regular rider, who will be aboard Call On Carson, a 20-1 shot starting on the very outside position in the 12-horse field. Cooper said Frazier had done all the recuperation work on Tex, including the workout on Tuesday. But given the uncertainty over Flamethrowintexan's Mile status, Frazier decided to take another mount in Emerald Down's richest race, which this year comes with a chance at even more prize money: The winner is guaranteed a spot in the $1 million Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile at Santa Anita on Oct. 25.

Gary Baze, a Washington Hall of Fame jockey, will be on Flamethrowintexan. He has won the Longacres Mile a record five times, and Penney has trained five winners of the Mile, the most of any trainer in the race's history.

Tex held off Papi Chullo, who had been shipped in from California, in 2006, but at 15-1 in the morning line, he isn't seen as the best local hope of beating the shippers in Sunday's Mile. That role goes to 5-1 Wasserman, owned and trained by Howard Belvoir and ridden by Jennifer Whitaker. The 6-year-old gelding, by Cahill Road out of Share the Knight, has three wins and a second in six starts this year at Emerald Downs. Wasserman was third in the 2007 Longacres Mile.

Two shippers got the handicappers' nod as favorites, with Tropic Storm out of California at 5-2 and True Metropolitan from Canada at 3-1.

Asked if she had a prediction on how Flamethrowintexan would finish, Cooper had a flat-out "No," but was quick to point out another Penney horse in the race, Honour the West with Leslie Mawing riding.

"Honour the West is doing very well, and is not to be overlooked."

And it will only be 21 days since Honour the West last raced.