Retama meet opens with format overhaul

The Retama Park meet that opens Friday night near San Antonio has a completely new format. The track is running a mixed meet for Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses this year instead of separate meets for each breed, and it will conduct its signature races, the El Joven and La Senorita, on a Tuesday card Sept. 4.

The season runs 25 dates through Sept. 5.

Retama will run straight Thoroughbred cards on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, while Quarter Horses will be featured on Fridays and Saturdays when there is no conflict with the Gillespie County Fair meet in Fredericksburg, Texas.

An exception to the schedule will be Aug. 4, when a pair of Thoroughbred stakes will be held on the Saturday night card to complement inductions into the Texas Horse Racing Hall of Fame. A trackside gala will usher in a new class comprising trainer Todd Pletcher, who is a native of Dallas, as well as Bold Venture, Tom Durant, Jim Helzer, Julianna Hawn Holt, Corey Johnsen, and One Famous Eagle.

Retama ran 22 dates for Thoroughbreds last year and 20 for Quarter Horses, but amended its dates request for 2018 due to a new regulatory fee schedule for the state’s tracks.

The El Joven and La Senorita, both one-mile turf stakes worth $75,000 for 2-year-olds, anchor a Thoroughbred schedule of six stakes. The schedule also includes a pair of $65,000 divisions of the Texas Stallion Stakes for 2-year-olds at six furlongs on Wednesday, Aug. 15. The first Thoroughbred stakes of the meet are Aug. 4, with the running of the $50,000 Texas Hall of Fame and the $50,000 Fiesta Mile, a pair of turf routes for 3-year-olds and up bred in Texas.

Retama opens its meet with Quarter Horse cards from Friday night through July 28, when its richest stakes for the breed, the TQHA Sales Futurity and the Retama Park Derby, are to be conducted. The first Thoroughbred races will be held on a Tuesday, July 31, after the close of the current meet at Lone Star Park near Dallas.

Retama will run 10 races Friday night led by the $15,000 Selma, a 350-yard race for fillies and mares. Sugars First Love, the runner-up in the Oklahoma Derby in March at Remington Park, faces older rivals but will start as one of the top contenders for trainer Trey Wood.

First post nightly is 6:45 p.m. Central.