Meet opens with big card on the horizon

Sam Houston Race Park opens Friday with its most significant card of racing on the immediate horizon. The Houston Racing Festival, led by the Grade 3, $300,000 Houston Ladies Classic and the $200,000 John B. Connally Turf Cup, is set for Jan. 25.

Sam Houston’s season will run 42 dates through April 6. The track has set a 6:30 p.m. Central post time for Fridays and a 1 p.m. post for Saturdays and Sundays.

Miss Code West and Flashy Lass are early probables for the Houston Ladies Classic, according to their respective trainers, Kevin Scholl and Steve Asmussen. Both runners are coming off stakes wins at Remington Park.

Sam Houston has carded seven races for its opener, and boasts a strong riding colony for the new season. Stewart Elliott, the Kentucky Derby-winning jockey coming off the title at Remington, is again wintering at Sam Houston. He’s joined by Deshawn Parker, who has returned after an absence, and Chris Landeros, who will be riding first call for trainer J.R. Caldwell, according to Landeros’s agent, Scott Hare.

The stakes schedule gets underway Saturday with a pair of $75,000 divisions of the Texas Stallion Stakes. The track’s signal is not expected to be exported to other states due to an ongoing impasse between the Texas Racing Commission and the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority.

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