Hazel closes meet with stakes-heavy card

An abbreviated 2015 meet at Hazel Park will bid adieu on Saturday night with its marquee card, the Michigan Sire Stakes program.

The evening’s six stakes races, featuring male and female divisions for juveniles (contested at four furlongs), 3-year-olds (six furlongs), and older horses (1 1/8 miles), are restricted to Michigan-sired runners with estimated purses of $40,000 each.

Trainer Ronald Allen Sr. will saddle four of the five entries in the 2-year-old males’ division, all of whom make their first starts Saturday. Among them is Gun Powder, a son of Gun Power out of four-time Sire Stakes winner Valley Loot who enters the race off a July 26 workout at ThistleDown, where he covered four furlongs in 51 3/5 seconds. T.D. Houghton will have the mount.

The juvenile fillies’ division is led by High Legend, who won her debut July 24 at Hazel Park, a four-furlong allowance, by 12 1/4 lengths. The Elusive Hour filly is trained by James Jackson and will be ridden by Jeffrey Skerrett.

Runnin Fun, the winner of the Lansing Stakes earlier in the meet, breaks from the rail in the 3-year-old males’ division. Trained by Richard Rettele and ridden by Alvaro Hernandez-Lopez, the Equality gelding enters off a runner-up finish by a neck in a July 25 allowance at Hazel Park.

Trinity Revealed enters the 3-year-old females’ Sire Stakes off three consecutive wins at Hazel Park, including the Regret Stakes on July 10, all at Saturday’s distance and with Ricardo Barrios, who retains the mount. Robert Gorham trains the Equality filly, whose most recent effort was a 6 1/4-length rout July 24, when she defeated six of the nine foes she will face Saturday.

Hooched Express was claimed by owner and trainer Joe Sharp for $5,000 on June 26 and ran a solid second under his new colors at Indiana Grand two weeks later. He enters the older males’ Sire Stakes as the probable favorite after winning a 1 1/8-mile allowance at Hazel Park on July 25 by a half-length under Fredy Peltroche, who rides again Saturday. The 10-year-old son of Favorite Express had in recent years been a solid blue-collar runner for Steve Asmussen in Louisiana, Texas, and the Midwest.

Comeflywithanangel, Michigan’s 2014 Horse of the Year, aims to win her second consecutive older females’ Sire Stakes and add to her run of three wins in her last five starts. Gorham saddles the Equality mare, and Barrios picks up the mount following her second-place effort in a July 25 allowance behind stablemate Afternoon Prayer, who she will face again Saturday.