Retama: Jetblack Gold Moment heads TQHA Sales Futurity

The rapidly improving Jetblack Gold Moment will be chasing her third straight win Saturday, when she starts as the fastest-qualifier in the $400,000 Texas Quarter Horse Association Sales Futurity at Retama Park near San Antonio. She is one of four capable fillies in the futurity, a restricted Grade 2 race that drew a field of 10.

Jetblack Gold Moment showed promise this spring, when she won her debut and finished second by a nose in the Grade 3 Harrah’s Futurity at Louisiana Downs. She proceeded to run fourth in a Remington Park trial in May before stepping up her game this summer. Jetblack Gold Moment has won her last two starts by a combined 3 1/2 lengths, beginning with a Delta Downs allowance score June 13.

Jetblack Gold Moment then set the fastest qualifying time for the TQHA, when she won her 350-yard trial in 17.45 seconds July 13. She cruised by two lengths under Danny Lavergne, who has the mount again Saturday for trainer Kenneth Roberts.

The chief threat appears to be second-fastest qualifier Mystical Cartel, who won her trial in 17.47 seconds. The other fillies making up the field are One Eyed Eagle, who earlier this year ran eighth in the Grade 2 Sam Houston Futurity, and One Fast Wagon, who was seventh in the Harrah’s Futurity.

* Texasindependencegal, who won six straight races last season, is seeking her first win this year in the Grade 3, $147,300 Retama Park Derby for Quarter Horses. Texasindependencegal has finished second by a head in all three of her starts in 2012.