Coalport heads back to Florida on three-race win streak

All three stakes starters whom trainer Mike Maker had at Sam Houston Race Park last Saturday night are headed in different directions. Coalport, who won the Grade 3, $200,000 Connally Turf Cup, is returning to Florida; Dreams Cut Short, who finished fourth in the same race, will target stakes at Fair Grounds; and Shanon Nicole, a close third in the $400,000 Houston Ladies Classic, is headed to next month’s Fasig-Tipton auction in Kentucky.

Coalport won his third straight race in the Connally, taking command at the start and never looking back for a 3 1/4-length win under Miguel Mena. For the effort, Coalport earned a career-high Beyer Speed Figure of 102. The race pleased Maker, who trains the horse for Ken and Sarah Ramsey.

“It was obviously impressive,” Maker said. “Nothing seems to surprise me with this horse.”

Coalport is in peak form. His streak includes an allowance win at Keeneland in October and the Buck’s Boy at Hawthorne in November. The next start is to be determined for Coalport.

“We’ll bring him back to Florida,” Maker said. “We haven’t made any decisions yet.”

Coalport went over $500,000 in earnings with Saturday’s win, and the success helped lift Maker and Mena to the top of the Penn Gaming Racing Challenge trainer and jockey standings. The series awards year-end bonuses and links stakes events at tracks owned by Penn Gaming, which has a 50 percent interest in Sam Houston.

Dreams Cut Short is a deep closer who rallied from last to secure a check in the Connally. Maker said he would be pointed for the Grade 3, $125,000 Fair Grounds Handicap on Feb. 21.

Shanon Nicole was beaten three-quarters of a length by Cassatt in the Houston Ladies Classic and earned a career-high 95 Beyer. Last year, she won the $200,000 Indiana Grand Oaks and the $200,000 Remington Park Oaks.

“She’s in the sale at Fasig-Tipton for Feb. 9,” Maker said of the Kentucky winter mixed auction that runs Feb. 8-9 in Lexington.

Angelica Zapata, the runner-up in the Houston Ladies Classic, is entered in the same sale.

Maker’s stable includes the stakes-winning Texas-bred Magna Breeze, who is scheduled to return to Sam Houston next month for the $50,000 Jersey Village Turf on Feb. 14. In his most recent outing, Magna Breeze was third by a half-length in the $50,000 Richard King at Sam Houston.

The Connally and Houston Ladies Classic made for the richest program of Thoroughbred racing in Texas, with purses exceeding $725,000. Handle on the 10-race card was $1,888,935 from all sources, up 1 percent from the corresponding program in 2014, according to track spokeswoman Jamie Nielsen.