Lone Star: Calhoun stablemates run one-two in Premiere

Trainers, like horseplayers, will sometimes stare at a race’s odds in surprise, not knowing what to make of how the public is betting the race.

Defending Lone Star Park training champion Bret Calhoun had that experience when Lone Star Park opened Thursday night. He said he was surprised as his two horses loaded in the gate for Thursday’s opening-race Premiere Stakes, seeing Gold Element and Red Coyote – runners he deemed as major win threats – as somewhat overlooked 4-1 shots apiece.

“I’m thinking somebody knows something I don’t know,” he said.

He need not have fretted. Despite only mild support at the betting windows, the uncoupled pair ran how Calhoun expected they would, with Gold Element catching Red Coyote in the stretch to win by 1 1/2 lengths.

“I thought they both ran really well,” Calhoun said. “I really didn’t know which would come out on top.”

Gold Element, a 5-year-old gelded son of Gold Legend owned by Randy Galloway’s Wimp Free Stable, raced 6 1/2 furlongs in a quick 1:15.70, and paid $10. The exacta to his stablemate Red Coyote returned $47.20.

Deliverer was third, and Solar Charge, the even-money favorite, ran fourth.

Specific racing plans for the one-two finishers are undetermined, though Red Coyote is likely to return to route racing, said Calhoun, who added another victory on the opening-night card when Port of Seattle won the seventh race as the 1-5 favorite.

Attendance Thursday evening was 8,874, up 3 percent from last year and the highest since 2007.