La Cara will likely roll out new tactics on Saturday, when the multiple Grade 1 winner launches her 4-year-old season against stakes winners Standoutsensation, Take Charge Milady, Queen Azteca, and Too Much Kiki in the Grade 3, $300,000 Houston Ladies Classic at Sam Houston Race Park. “That’s a good race,” said Mark Casse, who trains La Cara. The Houston Ladies Classic, which is for fillies and mares at 1 1/16 miles, highlights the annual Houston Racing Festival card of five stakes worth a total of $750,000. The program includes the $200,000 John B. Connally Turf Cup, the $100,000 Bob Bork Texas Turf Mile, and a pair of stakes for 3-year-olds bred in Texas. The 12-race card begins at 1 p.m. Central and as of Wednesday, the simulcast will be restricted to international sites and other tracks in Texas due to an ongoing impasse between the Texas Racing Commission and the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority. La Cara wired her rivals in last year’s Ashland and Acorn. She could change things up when she breaks from post 8 in Saturday’s field of eight for the Houston Ladies Classic. :: Access the most trusted data and information in horse racing! DRF Past Performances and Picks are available now. “There’s a lot of speed in the race, and my feeling with her is, I don’t like to have to be on the lead,” Casse said. “We’ll probably sit off the lead. “I would say unless something happens and she catches a flyer, my instructions to [jockey] Cristian Torres will be, ‘Let’s try to get her to settle.’ This is the start of what we hope is a big year and she’s older now and it’s time for her to be more versatile in her running style.” There are reasons to believe La Cara can be more versatile. She closed from 11th to win the Pocahontas in 2024 after encountering trouble. And in more recent times, La Cara has been prepped for change in her workouts. “She’s got a great mind,” Casse said of the $1.2 million earner who races for her breeder, Tracy Farmer. La Cara, who totes top weight of 123 pounds and spots her rivals between three and seven pounds each, could find herself sitting off sprint to route prospect Too Much Kiki and Standoutsensation. “She’s done so well being on the lead, we didn’t want to change that,” Casse said. “But this is a new year. This is a beginning to what we hope will be a great 2026 for her and in my opinion, the problem when you have to go to lead, there’s always somebody there that’s going to bother you and I don’t like that. I like for us to be able to dictate how we want to run and so this is going to be a bit of a learning experience. She’s going to settle.” Standoutsensation will be looking for her fifth consecutive win when she goes to post for Joel Politi and trainer Tom Amoss. She has built her streak racing on the front end. Standoutsensation won allowances at Saratoga and Churchill Downs last summer and fall before taking the Turnback the Alarm at Aqueduct and the Pippin at Oaklawn in her most recent out Dec. 26. Connally Truly Quality landed in Houston on Wednesday morning for a start in the John B. Connally Turf Cup, which will be run over 1 1/2 miles. He won at the distance last out when he defended his title in the Grade 2 Hollywood Turf Cup at Santa Anita, and distance was the reason he was flown in from his Southern California base for the Connally. “We shipped 1,800 miles to get two extra furlongs,” quipped trainer Jonathan Thomas. “There’s very few races going a mile and a half this time of year. There’s nothing in California until March. There’s the McKnight at Gulfstream this weekend. . . but this was just logistically an easier place to get to and keeping him a mile and a half.” Truly Quality will break from post 8 in the field of 12. “He’s training real well,” Thomas said. “He’s always shown up when he gets the proper kind of race dynamics. Hopefully, we’ll have a little bit of pace to run into. “It’s a big field. We’ve got to overcome a lot. We need good luck, so we’ll see what happens.” The field includes Nineeleventurbo, who was third in the Hollywood Turf Cup, and Offlee Naughty, a Grade 2 winner cross-entered in the McKnight. ◗ Bohemian will be looking for his third straight win at a mile on turf when he goes in the $100,000 Bob Bork Texas Turf Mile. The race is for 3-year-olds and it drew a field of seven, including several invaders from Louisiana. ◗ Big Time Charlie, who is unbeaten and untested in two career starts, leads a competitive group for the $75,000 Groovy. ◗ Harvey’s Finnish looks for her second straight stakes win in the $75,000 Bara Lass. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.