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ONLY 2 TRIALS FOR EACH DIVISION TO QUALIFY FOR TTA SALES FUTURITY FINALS
Lone Star Park’s 2010 meet has reached the point where the traditional TTA Sales Futurity Trials are run on Thursday and Friday night this week to determine the 12 qualifiers for the Finals, which will be run on Saturday, June 5, the same day as the Belmont Stakes, the last of this year’s Triple Crown races.
However, this year’s 5-furlong Trials have drawn the slimmest number of entrants in their history with only 17 2-year-old fillies entered in the second and fourth races on Thursday night. Friday night’s Trials, which will also go as the second and fourth races, drew only 16 colts and geldings. With declines in the number of original nominees from past years coupled with the drop off in Trial entries, the projected gross of the Filly Division is $67,590 and it is $60,280 for the Colt/Gelding Division.
Trainer Bret Calhoun will saddle five fillies for the two Trials including favored Pink October, runner-up in her debut, in the second race, and the fast-working debut runner Gold Belle in the fourth race. Heiligbrodt Racing Stable’s $42,000 Texas-bred 2-year-old sales acquisition Fastation, second in her bow, also drew into the second race. Markpoint Stable’s Manor Downs Thoroughbred Futurity winner Lady Primal returns to competition in the fourth race.
Caroline Dodwell’s speedy Aces N Kings, the only foal by Jet Phone, will try to emulate his debut on April 16 when he drew off to win easily by 6 ¾ lengths as he heads Friday’s first Trial. In the fourth race, Calhoun will send out Valid Promise, Jerry Durant’s $100,000 sales-topping 2-year-old from the Fasig-Tipton Texas auction this spring, for his first start. Trainer Steve Asmussen will saddle two rivals in the promising Midway Road colt Jazz Party along with Ominous Thomas, owned in partnership by Bill Wilks and Richard Hessee.
LOOKIN AT LUCKY, MIDLANTIC SALES TOPPER BOTH HAVE TEXAS BREEDING TIES
Preakness Stakes winner Lookin At Lucky and the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic sales-topping 2-year-old Medaglia d’Oro filly both have strong Texas breeding ties.
Lookin At Lucky’s dam, Private Feeling, is a half-sister to the 1995 Texas Champion 3-Year-Old Filly Grand Charmer, as both were out of Lookin At Lucky’s granddam, Regal Feeling. Grand Charmer was bred in partnership by Will Farish and Temple Webber and proved to be a gem of consistency. She ran in the money in 15 of 17 starts winning six times including Arlington Park’s Grade 3 Pucker Up Stakes.
The Medaglia d’Oro filly was hammered down to Jess Jackson and his wife, Barbara Banke, for $650,000, a record price for a filly at the sale, after zipping an eighth of a mile in :10 1/5 to equal the fastest time of two other sales horses during the under tack show. Her dam, the Valid Expectations mare Chit Chat Pam, was bred in Texas by two-time TTA President Joe Archer and became a two-time stakes winner racing for former TTA Director Ken Murphy, who sold her privately.
Fast furlongs...Accredited Texas-Bred Incentive Program awards checks will be in the mail by the end of the week for the Sam Houston Race Park and Manor Downs meets that ended in April...Writing in the Daily Racing Form, columnist Dan Illman tabbed Texas-bred Chief of Affairs with the performance of the week for his stakes win at Indiana Downs very close to track record time while earning a 106 Beyer Speed Figure, his fifth triple-digit Beyer in 10 lifetime starts...Conduct of the Belmont Park and Saratoga race meets may will be in jeopardy because of New York Racing Association’s budget woes, but the repetitive carping by NYRA brass over finances reminds me of the little boy who kept on crying wolf and when the wolf really showed up, no one paid attention...Surprise 2009 Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird will have D. Wayne Lukas as his trainer when he returns to the races later this summer...Magna Entertainment Corporation emerged from bankruptcy court two weeks ago, but the turmoil surrounding Frank Stronach-run tracks has started anew with Ron Charles resigning as president of Santa Anita, MI Developments dissolving partnership ties with Churchill Downs in TrackNet, and then voiding its lease with the highly respected non-profit Oak Tree Racing Association, an entity that has run fall meets at Santa Anita for 41 years...Greyhound racing in New England used to be second only to greyhound racing Florida, but its demise in the Northeast was completed last Friday when Rhode Island’s governor signed legislation that no longer required Twin River, the former Lincoln Downs horse track, to run dogs... The Jockey Club Information Systems Inc. has unveiled a Pedigree Analysis Program on equineline.com enabling customers to research and analyze the effects of specific crosses and inbreeding patterns through queries of the TJCIS database...Correction: In last week’s Update, I referred to Cocalero as a “her” but he is definitely a colt.