Great Minds thinking second straight Steve Sexton Mile win
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Great Minds ran one of the best races of his career last year at Lone Star Park, and he is set to return to the Grand Prairie, Texas, track next weekend for the Grade 3, $200,000 Steve Sexton Mile. Great Minds won the race a year ago, when it was called the Texas Mile.
“We’re on schedule,” trainer Al Stall Jr. said Friday.
Entries for the Steve Sexton Mile will be taken Sunday. The race is scheduled for May 7.
Lone Star racing secretary Mike Shamburg had a working list of 10 possible starters as of Friday. He said the field could include Mor Spirit, who in March won the $250,000 Essex Handicap at Oaklawn with a Beyer Speed Figure of 105; American Dubai, a winner of his last four races, including the $150,000 Sunland Park Handicap; Texas Chrome, the winner of last year’s Super Derby and Oklahoma Derby who worked five furlongs in a bullet 59 seconds Friday at Lone Star; and Shotgun Kowboy, who was second in last year’s Texas Mile.
Great Minds is based at Evangeline Downs in Opelousas, La., and Stall said the horse was to have had his final work for the race Saturday. Shipping plans are to be determined. Stall said Colby Hernandez would have the mount.
Stall said the distance of the Steve Sexton Mile is perfect for Great Minds.
“He just seems to like a flat mile,” he said. “It seems to be what he’s done well at. We’ve tried everything else. He’s sprinted on the turf, went long on the turf, went a mile and a sixteenth on the main track. He just seems like he’s done well at this particular trip.”
Great Minds, who has registered four of his six wins at a mile, also won the Borgata Stakes at the distance last year at Delta Downs.
The Steve Sexton Mile is one of two approaching goals for Great Minds; the other race on his radar is the Evangeline Mile, Stall said.
The horse is owned by Vince Wilfork.
Shamburg said other potential starters in the Steve Sexton Mile include Avanti Bello, F J Uncle Vic, Grande Basin, and Kentuckian.
The race is named for one of the key members of the original management team of Lone Star who died in December.
