Have a comment or question about this week's update? Send an e-mail to davidh@texasthoroughbred.com. Read past updates in the Executive Director's Update archive.
LONE STAR CARDS 21 STAKES WORTH $2.2 MILLION FOR 2010 THOROUGHBRED MEET
Lone Star Park will offer 21 stakes worth $2,200,000 during its 2010 Thoroughbred meet that is scheduled to run 60 days from April 8 through July 18.
Four Grade 3 stakes highlight the schedule. The graded races start with the $200,000 Texas Mile on April 24. The $200,000 Lone Star Derby will be renewed on May 8. The $300,000 Lone Star Park Handicap and $200,000 Ouija Board Distaff will highlight the seven stakes on the Lone Star Million program on Memorial Day, Monday, May 31.
The Stars of Texas Day card is set for Saturday, July 10, when Texas-breds and the progeny of Texas stallions will be showcased in four stakes, including the first 2-year-old divisions of the Texas Stallion Stakes Series for foals of 2008 going 5 ½ furlongs. The $75,000 Assault Handicap and $50,000 Valor Farm Stakes are also part of the Stars of Texas Day program.
Following tradition, older Texas-breds will kick off the new meet with the $50,000 Premiere Stakes carded at one mile as the first race. The finals of the two divisions of the TTA Sales Futurity will be run on Saturday, June 5, the same day as the Belmont Stakes, the final leg of this year’s Triple Crown.
The last legs of the Texas Stallion Stakes Series for foals of 2007 will be run on Saturday, May 8.
They are currently listed with a $100,000 purse for each division, but the Texas Thoroughbred Association Board of Directors is trying to find source funding to increase the value of each race by $25,000 so that all four races in the series for that crop will be worth $125,000.
Last year, Lone Star paid out nearly $3.1 million in stakes, but with the economic downturn and significant decline in handle on imported simulcasts, management cut the value of nearly all the major stakes and eliminated one of its graded stakes.
STEVE ASMUSSEN HAS NIGHT TO REMEMBER AT 39TH ANNUAL ECLIPSE AWARDS
Steve Asmussen had a night to remember at last Monday evening’s 39th annual Eclipse Awards dinner at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Hollywood, CA. You might call it a grand slam since he was connected directly to four Eclipse awards.
Asmussen trained 2009 Horse of the Year honoree and 3-Year-Old Filly Champion Rachel Alexandra through the last eight months of her undefeated 8-race campaign. He also finished the year as conditioner of Kodiak Kowboy, voted the Eclipse Champion Sprinter of 2009.
In addition, Asmussen won his second Eclipse Award as the leading trainer in North America having set a new all-time record with 650 wins for the year. This time he handed the award to his key assistants, Scott Blasi and Darren Fleming, in recognition of their contributions to the stable’s success.
Congratulations, Steve!
COYOTE LEGEND, TIN TOP CAT ADD DELTA STAKES TO TX CHAMPIONS DAY SCORES
Clarence Scharbauer’s homebred Coyote Legend and Bill Jordan and Jerry Durant’s homebred Tin Top Cat proved that the mild upsets they scored on Texas Champions Day were no fluke as both horses returned last Friday night to win open stakes at Delta Downs in their first trips around two turns.
Coyote Legend, winner of the Groovy Stakes at Sam Houston Race Park on December 5, returned in the $60,000 Triple Sec and found his trip around the Delta oval much to his liking as he won by 6 ½ widening lengths in a time of 1:26 2/5 for seven furlongs on a good track.
Tin Top Cat, the Bara Lass victress on Texas Champions Day, captured Delta’s $60,000 Genesis Stakes by a neck in 1:28 1/5 in a 3-horse photo. Both winners were trained by Bret Calhoun and ridden by Bobby Walker Jr. and they may target the respective $125,000 divisions of the Texas Stallion Stakes at Sam Houston on February 20 for their next starts.
Fast furlongs...Eileen Hartis reports that her Texas homebred Princess Haya, the 2009 Texas Horse of the Year, has completed her vacation at Ron Stevens’ training center in Morriston, FL, and will soon ship to Gulfstream Park to rejoin trainer Michael Matz’s stable...What a huge boost for Thoroughbred racing in 2010 with the announcement that Breeders’ Cup Classic Champion Zenyatta will continue her racing career at age six and likely face Rachel Alexandra in a memorable confrontation or two or three in the not-too-distant future...Calder Casino at Calder Race Course opened its new $85 million slots facility at 9am EST this morning with 1,200 machines, with revenue to overnight purses expected to jump $30,000 per day from the new source...Santa Anita’s management, plagued by three cancelled racing days this week due to rain and the Pro-Ride synthetic surface’s inability to drain adequately, is planning to return to a dirt surface for its main track before the start of the Oak Tree meet this fall...Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear threw down the gauntlet to the state legislature by including $780 million in projected revenues from slots at tracks in his 2-year budget proposal...Churchill Downs will offer three Kentucky Derby Future Wager pools on the weekends of February 12-14, March 5-7 and March 26-28, and bets can be made at Texas tracks as a part of simulcast operations ...The first Kentucky Derby-themed slot machine will debut shortly before this year’s Run for the Roses on May 1 as a joint venture of Aristocrat Technologies Inc. and Churchill Downs Inc...Canterbury Park will host the $500,000 Claiming Crown series of six stakes on July 24, marking the 10th time in the event’s 12-year history that it has been run at the Shakopee, MN, track...The auction of Magna Entertainment Corporation’s two Maryland Jockey Club tracks, Laurel Park and Pimlico Race Course, did not happen as scheduled yesterday and has been reset for February 10 by the bankruptcy judge overseeing the sale of MEC assets...Lentenor, a 3-year-old full brother to 2006 Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro, showed promise breaking his maiden on Gulfstream grass last Wednesday in only his third career start...Pennsylvania reached a new milestone in December as its $2.1 billion in slot-machine play exceeded the $2 billion generated in Atlantic City for the first time...Responding to the legislation recently passed to legalize table games in Pennsylvania, Delaware’s House of Representatives easily passed a measure that would add table games to the gaming menu at the state’s two harness tracks and Delaware Park...Hall of Fame jockey Gary Stevens’ new training career proved to be short-lived as he is dispersing his 14-horse stable to focus on work as a racing analyst on NBC and HRTV and a theatrical role offered to him for a new HBO racing series...The Cherokee Nation, the new owner of Blue Ribbon Downs in Sallisaw, OK, is weighing the cost of opening the track as a training facility...Corrections from last week in listing breeders of Texas-bred stakes winners in 2009: Rose Mary Chandler is the breeder of Lydia’s Last Step and Byron Crook bred Crook’s Bodgit.