Rumpole tries two turns in Texas Stallion Stakes division

GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas – Rumpole will seek his third consecutive stakes win Saturday night when he makes his two-turn debut in the $65,000 Stymie division of the Texas Stallion Stakes at Lone Star Park.

The one-mile race for 3-year-olds by eligible stallions is one of two stakes on the card. The companion race for fillies, the Got Koko division, also is worth $65,000. It’s led by Kat’s Infatuation and the multiple stakes winner Country Candy.

Rumpole will face seven, including fellow stakes winners Imma Wild Bling and Shaded. Trainer Bob Young is hopeful that Rumpole will handle the added distance. The horse is stretching out off two six-furlong stakes wins at Sam Houston: the $65,000 Jim’s Orbit division of the Texas Stallion Stakes on Feb. 18 and the $50,000 Groovy on March 13.

“I think he’ll be all right, but it’s his first time around two turns,” Young said. “He’s acted like he would go that far, and his momma has produced [horses] that have run that far.”

Rumpole is a half-brother to both Chit Chat Pam, a stakes winner at a mile, and Lonesome Wind, a winner of four dirt routes who ran second in the $50,000 Star of Texas at two turns in February at Sam Houston.

“She’s a really nice mare,” Young said of their dam, Dehere’s Dream. “She just had a full sister to [Rumpole] not long ago.”

Rumpole is by Too Much Bling, and Young said Dehere’s Dream has been bred back to that stallion. Rumpole is owned by his breeder, Joe Archer, who races as Fletcher Properties.

Richard Eramia has the mount and might be able to control the pace from post 2.

“He’ll do whatever you ask him to do,” Young said of Rumpole. “That will be up to Richard. If somebody wants to really burn it up, then we won’t be on the lead because we can put him wherever we want.”

Kat’s Infatuation figures to go favored in the Got Koko because she owns the field’s best string of recent Beyer Speed Figures. She also is proven at two turns and is moving back into a restricted stakes after finishing second against open company in the $50,000 Cajun Miss on April 14 at Evangeline Downs.

Kat’s Infatuation had won her first stakes one start earlier, romping by 8 1/4 lengths in the $50,000 Bara Lass for Texas-breds at Sam Houston. The Got Koko will mark her second start at two turns. In her first, she won a 6 1/2-furlong allowance in December at Delta Downs.

Eramia has the mount for trainer Bret Calhoun.

Kat’s Infatuation, a daughter of Silver City, races for her breeders, Wayne Sanders and Larry Hirsch.

Her chief rivals include Country Candy, who won an open-company stakes last year at Evangeline and captured a division of the Texas Stallion Stakes at Retama Park; Gold Shock, who has placed in four stakes and is a half-sister to Grade 3 winner He’s Comin in Hot; and Pure Grey, a half-sister to multiple stakes winner Supermason.

◗ Pink Adobe, a 2-year-old half-sister to Coyote Legend, who earned more than $700,000, and Gold Coyote, who banked $515,000, debuts in the third race. Coyote Legend and Gold Coyote won a combined 19 stakes, many in Texas.