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SATURDAY’S TEXAS CHAMPIONS DAY DRAWS SEVERAL FULL FIELDS TO HOUSTON
Texas Champions Day, the most popular racing night for many owners and breeders of Texas-breds, returns to Sam Houston Race Park this Saturday night for the first time since 2007. Last year, Texas Champions Day was relocated to Retama Park while Sam Houston continued its recovery from the damage to the grandstand and barn area caused by Hurricane Ike.
The return to Sam Houston has resulted in the fullest Texas Champions Day fields in recent years. After the draw for post positions last Wednesday, there were 83 Texas-breds entered in the seven restricted stakes worth $400,000. Six of the seven stakes have 11 or more entries. The Spirit of Texas drew eight.
Following is a brief race-by-race synopsis of the Texas Champions Day stakes:
3rd Bara Lass (2yo f): Clayton Walker’s Bud’s Little Edge won’t have 2-time Texas Stallion Stakes victress Camille’s Appeal to beat this time, but may find stiff competition from Keith Asmussen’s recent lengthy Remington Park winners Cuvando and Proud Player. Steve Asmussen trains all three;
4th San Jacinto (3&up f&m): W. Temple Webber’s recent front-running Fair Grounds winner Truly Lucky, bred by Stonerside Stable and trained by Mike Stidham, may be hard to catch on turf;
5th Spirit of Texas (3&up): Clarence Scharbauer Jr.’s Texas champion Gold Coyote showed a return to his best sprint form in a wire-to-wire Remington win in October, but he’ll have Wayne Sanders and Larry Hirsch’s speedy Chief of Affairs, bred by Dr. Jacquelyn Rich, to catch. Bret Calhoun trains both;
6th Yellow Rose (3&up f&m): Hal Browning’s Annie Savoy won the 2007 renewal of this 6-furlong stakes, but she’ll have to be at her best to run down Stewart Hamblen’s dual Texas champion Wrenice and J. Kirk Robison’s 2008 Texas Horse of the Year Stealth Cat;
7th Richard King (3&up): General Charley, the versatile 7-year-old 10-time winner bred by Stonerside, returns to Texas after finishing a bang-up third on Churchill Downs grass only to find Tawana Cantrell’s former John B. Connally Turf winner Scrappy Roo continuing his comeback in this grass test;
8th Star of Texas (3&up): The 4-year-old filly Taptam, racing for the Sanders-Hirsch partnership, will try to do her Texas version of Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta and beat her 10 male rivals to the finish of the 1 1/16-mile stakes and earn the $60,000 winner’s share of the $100,000 purse;
10th Groovy (2yo c&g): Rose Mary Chandler’s Lydia’s Last Step, trained by Danny Pish, brings his Zia Park Governor’s Cup Stakes-winning form to his home state to take on Cash and Keith Asmussen’s TTA Sales Futurity winner Majestic Vintage and 12 others in this wide-open, 7-furlong closing event.
The $100,000 Gallery Furniture Distaff, the only open stakes of the evening, is carded as the 9th race. The six entrants include shippers who last raced at Aqueduct, Delta Downs, Fair Grounds and three from Remington Park, the most interesting of those being Bubbler, winner of her two starts by 14 lengths.
The 1st and 2nd races are the traditional 5 ½-furlong starter allowance races, the Davy Crockett for males and the Susanna Dickinson for females. First post is set for 7pm.
During the evening, Lynn Reardon will be signing copies of her recently published book “Beyond the Homestretch,” which is filled with tales of the horses she has helped transition from racing to second careers through her LOPE facility near Bastrop. She will be located on both the main floor and clubhouse level near the Winner’s Circle dining area. Her book jumped overnight to No. 1 on Amazon listings under the Horse category.
TRC TURNS DOWN TRINITY MEADOWS REQUEST; UNBUILT TRACKS GIVE REPORTS
The Texas Racing Commission turned down a request made by the owner of Trinity Meadows to open an application period for a Class 2 racetrack license in Parker County during Wednesday’s regularly scheduled meeting in Austin. The unanimous 9-0 vote included participation of the TRC’s newest member, Scott Haywood, a recent appointee of Governor Rick Perry to replace Tom Latham.
The TRC also received status reports from each Class 2 licensee without a built track on progress being made to implement live racing and simulcasting. Former two-term TTA president Joe Archer provided the most interesting update while representing Austin Jockey Club. He testified that a specific site had been selected in Travis County and the contract on the land should be signed within 10 days.
SMARTY JONES WEANLING, 6 SPENDTHRIFT MARES NOW IN F-T TEXAS MIXED SALE
Tim Boyce, director of sales for Fasig-Tipton Texas, has advised that a Smarty Jones weanling and six mares from B. Wayne Hughes’ Spendthrift Farm have been added to the Legacy bloodstock consignment in the December 14 Mixed Sale at the Thoroughbred Sales Pavilion at Lone Star Park.
There will now be 14 mares offered on behalf of Spendthrift in the sale. Each one will sell with a 2010 no guarantee season to the farm’s new stallion, My Pal Charlie, a multiple stakes winner recently retired to the farm’s Louisiana operation. Pedigrees for the new additions can be viewed on the Fasig-Tipton Website, www.fasigtipton.com. The scheduled start of the sale is noon.
Fast Furlongs...Here’s wishing a safe, speedy journey to TTA Director Bill Clifton’s Tizway as he takes on an international field in the prestigious Japan Cup this Sunday...Dan Fick, former director of racing for the American Quarter Horse Association and most recently executive vice president and executive director of The Jockey Club, will leave his position at the end of the year to become an associate state steward with the Indiana Horse Racing Commission...Texas-based trainer Bret Calhoun unleashed a promising 2-year-old on Thanksgiving Day at Churchill Downs in Walking the Beach, a Medaglia d’Oro colt, who walked his beat for Galveston owner Ted Cooper...Racing returned to historic Hialeah Park last Saturday as a crowd of more than 25,000 welcomed Quarter Horses to the track made famous for its flamingos and many memorable Thoroughbreds like Citation, Kelso, Forego, Seattle Slew and many others...Former researcher Dr. Don Catlin has announced the finding of a test for the blood-doping agent CERA, the working name for Mincera, a derivative of erythropoietin...Oaklawn Park’s Arkansas Derby has been given Grade 1 status for its 2010 renewal along with Churchill Downs’ Clark Handicap and Saratoga’s Alfred G. Vanderbilt Handicap...Sunland Park’s Sunland Derby will carry Grade 3 status for the first time in 2010 after Mine That Bird brought attention to the stakes after running fourth in the race before shipping to Churchill Downs to post a monumental upset in the 2009 Kentucky Derby...An estimated 31 percent decline in horse sales and stud fees in Kentucky has knocked the Bluegrass State’s horse industry off its perch atop the state’s agricultural economy and positioned poultry as the leading agriculture revenue generator for the first time in 10 years...Texas-bred Texas Stallion Stakes winner Oak Motte is passing up a try at the Groovy on the Texas Champions Day card in order to run in the $750,000 Delta Jackpot against open company tonight where he may also encounter snow...Two major meetings take place within the next week with members of the American Association of Equine Practitioners, including TTA president Jacquelyn Rich, convening in Las Vegas, and representatives of all segments of the racing industry gathering in Tucson for the annual University of Arizona Race Track Industry Program’s Symposium on Racing...New York City Off-Track Betting Corporation filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection on Thursday afternoon giving it a very unique distinction of being a legal bookmaker that cannot make ends meet...TTA members are reminded to vote in the board election and get their ballots mailed so that they arrive in the self-addressed envelope by December 15 in order to be counted the next day...Our condolences to Mary Hesse whose Thanksgiving card came with the belated news of the passing of her husband, Walter, whose career in engineering and management included teaching four of the seven Project Mercury astronauts among other Navy test pilots.