Asmussen has 3 shots at Spur

GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas - Lone Star Park closes out its 74-day season on Sunday with an eye to the future. The track's feature is the $100,000 Silver Spur Stakes, a 5 1/2-furlong race for 2-year-old fillies that has drawn eight up-and-coming juveniles, including Point Gained, a half-sister to Preakness and Belmont Stakes winner Point Given.

Point Gained is one of three fillies, none of them coupled, leading trainer Steve Asmussen will start in the Silver Spur. His other representatives are Smoke Buster, winner of a division of the $150,000 Texas Thoroughbred Association Sales Futurity, and Wild Gear, who defeated male rivals in the $55,000 Manor Downs Futurity.

Point Gained, a three-length winner of her debut at Lone Star on June 20, has not accomplished as much on the track as her stablemates, but her pedigree alone makes her one to reckon with in the Silver Spur. Purchased for $300,000 as a 2-year-old in training by The Thoroughbred Corp., the filly is a daughter of Hennessy and Turko's Turn, who is the dam of Point Given.

Asmussen, who has many options with a filly as well bred as Point Gained, feels the Silver Spur is the right race for her to make her stakes debut in. "She's doing well, she's won over the track, and we don't have to move her," said Asmussen, who has given the mount to leading rider Corey Lanerie. "I think it's the responsible thing to do."

Asmussen has made a lot of right calls with his 2-year-old fillies at Lone Star. He has sent out the past three winners of the track's filly division of the TTA Sales Futurity. He also has sent out the second- and third-place finishers in the last two runnings of the Silver Spur.

If Asmussen cannot win his first Silver Spur with Point Gained, he can capture the race with Smoke Buster. In her last start, Smoke Buster, a daughter of Smoke Glacken, drove to a gutty front-running win in the TTA Sales Futurity. "She's got brilliant speed and is definitely a class filly," said Asmussen, who has given the return call to Curt Bourque.

Glen Murphy will be aboard Wild Gear, who had her four-race win streak snapped last out when she finished sixth, beaten less than two lengths, in the TTA Sales Futurity.

Among those set to challenge the Asmussen camp are Victory Road, a 9 1/2-length maiden winner July 4; Miss Ritz, a $5,000 supplement for trainer Bob Young; and Gotta Jiboo, an impressive maiden winner for trainer Kari Craddock.