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LONE STAR PARK OFFERS 3 MAJOR STAKES ON FIRST BIG WEEKEND OF 2010 MEET
The first of four major stakes days is on tap this Saturday at Lone Star Park where the Lone Star Million Preview program finds the $50,000 Grand Prairie Turf Challenge, the $200,000 Texas Mile and the $50,000 Irving Distaff scheduled as the 8th, 9th and 10th races on the 11-race card.
The Texas Mile drew last year’s winner, Michael Langford’s Jonesboro, along with the 2009 Lone Star Derby victor, Mythical Power, in a competitive field of eight older runners. Mythical Power, trained by Bob Baffert, has been installed as the 5-2 favorite over Jim and Marilyn Helzer’s 3-1 Euroears, who will be trying two turns for the first time in his 14th career start. Jonesboro is third choice at 7-2. The other entries include Becky’s Express, Fifteen Love, Harlan Street, King Dan and Star Guitar, a winner of 12 of 16 starts and considered the best older Louisiana-bred in training.
Deal Breaker is the morning line favorite at 8-5 for the one-mile Turf Challenge. Deal Breaker is a horse on the move as he ran second on Keeneland’s Polytrack last Saturday after shipping from California. Fifteen Love is second choice at 9-5 coming off his win in the $100,000 MAXXAM Gold Cup. If Fifteen Love is scratched from the Turf Challenge, Deal Breaker will be odds-on to defeat the nine other entrants.
The California invader Jehan will make her third start of the year in the Irving Distaff for trainer Mike Mitchell, who also conditions Deal Breaker. Jehan is the early 5-2 pick for the 7 ½-furlong grass test, which drew a full field of 12 including last year’s upset victress Hot Atlantic. Bubbler, a winner of five of her seven lifetime starts, will try to atone for one of her two losses as she tries turf for the second time.
GLOBAL GAMING BUYING SADDLE BROOK PARK; AJC ACQUIRING TRAVIS CTY. SITE
Global Gaming, the same Chickasaw Nation subsidiary that is in the process of purchasing Lone Star Park, may soon have a stable of two Texas horse tracks, according to testimony of Drew Alexander before the Texas Racing Commission at last Tuesday’s meeting. Alexander, who has owned Saddle Brook since the TRC approved his license application more than 10 years ago, stated that he is in the process of selling the Amarillo track site, architectural drawings, trademarks, logos and the license to Global Gaming and that a letter requesting approval of a change of ownership would be forthcoming in the near future.
During the same meeting, Bryan Brown, representing Austin Jockey Club, testified that a cash settlement closing was scheduled for Monday, May 3, on a 160-acre tract of land near SH 130 in South Travis County. He reported that AJC principals had met with local community leaders and received their strong support for a new racetrack in the community, although he did not identify the location.
TEXAS-BREDS LADY PRIMAL, WINDY LOU WIN CLOSING WEEKEND MANOR STAKES
The young Asmussen Horse Center stallion Primal Storm translated his precocity as an early-season 2-year-old Flash Stakes winner to his first offspring to race when Lady Primal won last Sunday’s Manor Downs Thoroughbred Futurity Finals. She had become her sire’s first winner in a Trial division. Lady Primal, bred in Texas by Keith Asmussen, stalked the early pacesetter before assuming command to draw away by 5 ¾ lengths in :53.52 for the 4 ½ furlongs on a muddy sealed surface. Her Markpoint Stablemate, Blushing Sis, a daughter of 2005 Kentucky Derby winner Giacomo, finished second. Jada Bo ran third on the closing day card. Erik McNeil rode the winner. Cash Asmussen saddled the one-two finishers who were overwhelming 2-5 choices.
Windy Lou found Manor mud to his liking last Saturday as he led every step of the Tony Sanchez Memorial Mile to win going away by four lengths in 1:37.56 at a generous 21-1 price for the 7-year-old’s fifth and most important victory in 50 career starts. Owned by Timothy Lavow, Windy Lou, bred in Texas by Dan Uglow, is conditioned by Jimmy Ray Jr. Calm and Collected, half of Henry Witt’s 6-5 favored entry with Texas Tycoon, finished second with Perfect Lou third.
DERBY TALE REKINDLED BY KENTUCKY HORSEMAN CARTER THORNTON’S DEATH
With the 2010 Kentucky Derby soon to be run, the death this past week of 92-year-old Carter Thornton, a well respected Kentucky hardboot owner, breeder, trainer, buyer, consignor and operator of Threave Main Stud near Paris, rekindled a memory of his recollection of the stretch run of the 1971 Kentucky Derby, won by the Venezuelan invader Canonero II as a member of the 6-horse mutuel field.
I remember watching the race from high atop the roof at Churchill Downs and recall exclaiming, “My God, it’s the Venezuelan horse,” as I saw the solid dark brown silks of Canonero’s jockey sweeping past horses on the last turn. He had dead aim on Calumet Farm’s dueling pair of Bold and Able and Eastern Fleet as they led one-two into the long stretch. That’s when Thornton had vivid recollections resurface of the colt he had sold with a crooked right leg for $1,200 at the Keeneland Fall Yearling Sale in 1969.
Thornton recalled, “The farther Canonero ran through the stretch, the straighter his leg got.”
Fast furlongs...Aaron Gryder, winner of more than 3,200 races during his career with leading rider titles at Aqueduct, Arlington Park, Churchill Downs and Hollywood Park, began riding at Lone Star Park last night with two mounts for trainer Steve Asmussen and will certainly be a major factor in the jockey standings for the remaining 52 days of the meet...Texas-bred Lake Texoma, owned in partnership by Lisa Allen, Mark Cornett and James Switser, is quickly running out of competition with lengthy maiden and allowance wins in Pennsylvania and he may return to his home state on May 8 to take on Clarence Scharbauer’s Texas-bred Coyote Legend at Lone Star Park in the last race in the Texas Stallion Stakes for foals of 2007...The 2010-11 Fair Grounds race meet will revert to its traditional start on Thanksgiving Day after two years of trying an earlier November opening...The proactive Racing Medication Testing Consortium is in negotiations to contract with a third-party provider to institute an External Quality Assurance Program to be implemented next year to determine a drug-testing laboratory’s proficiency in analyzing the presence and quantity of prohibited and regulated drugs in masked and double-masked urine and blood samples...During the TRC meeting, Dr. Robert Schmidt, a Fort Worth physician, was elected vice chair succeeding Dr. Kent Carter, a Texas A&M veterinarian...Purses for the Oklahoma Classics Day program will be a record $1,000,000 and two new races will be added when Remington Park hosts the biggest day of racing for Oklahoma-breds in 2010...It has to be good for racing to have Joe Torre, longtime New York Yankees manager and now the skipper of the Los Angeles Dodgers, involved in the ownership of Homeboykris, who is being pointed for this year’s Kentucky Derby...The Kentucky Derby Museum has reopened with a veritable treasure trove of Derby memorabilia after having been closed for nine months due to flood damage...Valor Farm’s freshman sire Jet Phone, a son of Phone Trick who has been bred to several Quarter Horse mares, had his first and only Thoroughbred foal of 2008 win impressively at first asking when Aces N Kings graduated by 6 ¾ lengths at Lone Star Park traveling 4 ½ furlongs in :52.78 a week ago...Citizen Jones, a winning son of Grade 2 stakes winner Proud Citizen, has joined the Texas stallion ranks at Jason and Tammy Colclasure’s Broken Road Ranch in Commerce...Florida Governor Charlie Crist has signed recently passed legislation to lower the state tax rate from 50 to 35 percent on slot machine revenue generated at Gulfstream Park and Calder Race Course...Like a cat with nine lives, New York City Off-Track Betting Corporation lives on after its board of directors decided late last week to keep shops open for as long as a year, although location closures and employee cutbacks remain topics of discussion...Future Breeders’ Cup sites remained unknown beyond 2010 at Churchill Downs after the Breeders’ Cup board of directors made no move to affirm locations after this year while meeting last Thursday...Purses for 13 major Del Mar stakes were reduced for this summer’s meet, but the $1,000,000 Pacific Classic escaped any cut in its 7-figure value.